How is this any riskier than being in a purely residential building, and perhaps having neighbors who argue loudly, practice the violin badly, or have noisy dogs? At least as businesses, any of the examples you cite above are likely to cease sometime during the evening.
As the flats are sizeable (600sqft), there are only 3 on each floor. Most of them appear to be residential and I would imagine with the works going on there (lift maintenance, etc) that they are slowly moving all to residential.
As mentioned, we went there during the day and at night and to be honest it was quiet in both. We can only go on what we have seen and heard at the time. The if's, what's and but's are just one of those things that might happen. We can only control what we can control and if something like that happens, then it's unfortunate, but as mentioned above, noise etc can happen in residential.
Presently live in a commercial property in Sheung Wan.
A few things to note:
- it is illegal, but you are not going to get arrested.
- you get a lot more space for your money.
- the lobby area, etc won't be as nice as a residential property (if that matters to you)
- getting internet can be problematic, you will probably have to pay for business broadband
- if you want cable TV this could be expensive
- you will pay commercial rates for electricity, water, gas, etc
- you may find it hard to get certain approvals (for example I've had issues getting a driving licence and certain credit cards)
- technically you won't be able to get a domestic helper approved, but I am aware of someone who has had this approved in a commercial building
- less strict noise restrictions
Overall we have been happy with where we have lived for the past several years, especially as we have so much space.
i believe it is quite easy to get lands department to kick out any unwelcome business activities in a residential building.
Thanks Pin, sounds like an honest assessment.
The one we are looking at is classed as residential so the bank have been able to provide it! Thankfully.