Hong Kong’s Rail-plus-Property (R+P) model, in which the rail operator and developers jointly deliver high-rise leasehold flat units above railway stations/depots, has been praised as a self-financing best practice model of transit-oriented development and land values capture in East Asia and globally. Drawing on case studies of large-scale R+P developments in Hong Kong, this paper examines how Deeds of Mutual Covenant, the uneven allocation of undivided shares, and developer-appointed estate management enable developers to retain long-term control over maintenance, governance and redevelopment decisions after residents purchase their flats. The paper conceptualises this arrangement as a “spatio-legal contract”: a spatialised form of property hegemony embedded within Hong Kong's leasehold land-property system.
Based on fieldwork conducted in 2023–2024, prior to the 2025 Wang Fuk Court fire (“Hong Kong’s Grenfell Tower Fire”), the study shows how these arrangements constrain owners' ability to govern their own buildings. Residents describe a loss of security and control within homes they legally own, producing experiences of un-homing and “emplaced displacement” driven not by eviction but by compulsory large-scale maintenance, opaque governance structures and growing awareness of developer hegemony. Interestingly, flats under R+P are aspired by general Hong Kongers. Beyond Hong Kong, the paper contributes to debates on leasehold and commonhold reform in the UK, highlighting how the travelling Rail-plus-Property Model that uses land and property to subsidise property developments may generate future vulnerabilities for small owners from proper control over housing governance and the need to rethink what counts as just ‘best practice’.