[10] In December 2018, Martin Lee represented Kwok Cheuk-kin and Hendrick Lui Chi-hang in an attempt to repeal the policy.
The Heung Yee Kuk organization advocates for the Small House Policy, and threatened to ask Beijing for help if an appeal to the April 2019 ruling was not granted.
[13] Justice Jeremy Poon also claimed that Hendrick Lui Chi-hang and Kwok Cheuk-kin did not have sufficient standing to bring up the case because they do not own land rights in the New Territories.
"[13] Additionally, the Liber Research Community said that due to the reversal of the April 2019 decision, 900 hectares of government land that could have been used for high rise developments would again be re-allocated to villagers and small houses.
[14] Following the decision by the Court of Appeal, the SCMP Editorial Board wrote their opinion, stating that the Small House Policy is an unsustainable burden and also unfair and discriminatory.
[20][21][22] In March 2022, ICAC charged Edward Wong for defrauding the government over 14 years for the sale of 115 small houses, and Ching for illegally purchasing "ding rights".
[23] In April 2021, an opinion piece on Apple Daily said that after the NPCSC had ensured only "patriots" serve in the government and eliminated opposition, Carrie Lam would be "simply incompetent" if she did not try to end the policy again, as she called for in 2012.
However, after 9 years, "UBWs in NTEHs remain pervasive, including new works, in-progress ones, and blatant existing unauthorised structures already identified by the BD for priority enforcement.
As such, I have decided to initiate a direct investigation to examine the enforcement measures undertaken by the BD and the Lands Department and their effectiveness in combating UBWs in NTEHs, and will make recommendations for improvement where necessary.
"[27] In October 2021, David Pannick, who was hired by the kuk to defend the policy, said in court that the plaintiff, Kwok Cheuk-kin, was simply a "busybody.
After handover, according to Article 40 of the Basic Law, "the lawful traditional rights and interests of the indigenous inhabitants of the 'New Territories' shall be protected by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region",[6] the Small House Policy is reasserted by the Chinese Central Government, which helps the Chinese Central Government to win the support of the New Territories indigenous inhabitants to consolidate their rule in Hong Kong,[32] and to show their respect to the traditional norms and culture of Hong Kong.
Secondly, according to Lands Department of Hong Kong, after a five-year period, the villager can freely sell his property in the market without any restriction.
After the grant of ownership transfer, the Small House Policy created huge and direct economic interest for the indigenous inhabitants.
[35] In other words, if all of these 240000 entitled villagers were going to apply for small houses, there would be a significant uptake of over 2,200 hectares of Hong Kong’s valuable land resources.
[37] On top of the abusive use of this policy, there are some indigenous villagers who are intentionally recruited by private landowners to sell their rights of ownership.
According to Lands Department of Hong Kong, indigenous villagers need to sign up a security document, which is to prevent them from taking full advantages of their title to the lot.
They apply for the removal of restriction on alienation while assigning the small houses to the developers so that they can gain benefits from selling their rights.
Although villagers living overseas are not allowed to apply for a small house, it is in fact difficult to determine if the application was made with a local address.
An SCMP author noted that small houses are for villagers' "own occupation," yet some owners live overseas.
First of all, the policy was designed to offer male indigenous villagers exclusively a right to apply for small houses.
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had released a report, mentioning that they were having great concerns about the sexual discrimination that the Small House Policy may potentially involve.
[40] Therefore, it is unfair that indigenous villagers enjoy an exclusive right to build houses, especially when Hong Kong is having serious land scarcity.
[44] In the face of population pressure, Hong Kong Government has to increase the land supply in order to deal with the rising housing demand in the future.
[10] Some transactions were done using secret contracts and offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands, making tracing of the deals and information on their developers more difficult to obtain.
[10] The Lands Department in the past 3 years had only referred 183 cases to law enforcement for investigation, representing less than 2% of all suspected illegal trades.