Your tales from up and down the property ladderMoving stories
‘Buying in the UK was a
way to bring our Chinese
family together’
Bricks
& Mortar4 Friday May 27 2022
the times
freedom; the pandemic has given [the
government] all the excuses they need
to control the country. You can’t go
anywhere without your mobile phone.
You have to have an amber light [on the
Alipay Health Code app] then the
restaurant allows you in, the shopping
centre allows you in, otherwise you can’t
even get on the bus. Can you imagine
the old people? They can’t do anything.
They don’t know how to use mobiles.
My Chinese neighbours are really
worried about Hong Kong. [The
communist party] has 70 to 80 per cent
control of Hong Kong. If one day they
decide to take 100 per cent control,
then it will become exactly like
[mainland] China.
I think where you buy [in the UK]
depends on your economic position.
A lot of my relatives went to Wales.
They say that the property there is
so cheap. I also have relatives in
Birmingham because they say they
can’t afford London. I still have one
brother here in Wood Green, so I
stayed in north London.I
n China we have a big house with
six bedrooms, a 600 sq m
detached villa. I need somebody
to help clean the place and do
the gardening because I’m 71
now. So me and my wife, Lily, 61,
didn’t want a house to be our main
home in the UK, we wanted an
apartment, but it had to be big enough
[writes Shing-Tung Chau].
I wanted to be closer to central
London until I saw Colindale Gardens in
Barnet, north London. I found this two-
storey, four-bedroom flat for £700,000
and that was exactly what we wanted. It
has a little courtyard as well so I can
practise my t’ai chi every morning.
We were looking for about a year
before we found it in January 2020.
I’m enjoying every moment. A lot of
Hong Kong people have bought here,
but they haven’t come yet. They bought
in case anything drastic happened. I
read recently that 100,000 people
applied to come to the UK from Hong
Kong last year.
People there have lost all their
GET BRITAIN
MOVING
Speed up. Streamline.
Save moneythe neighbouring flats too. My next
door neighbour wanted to expand his
business and he kept asking me to sell
my properties. I didn’t want to because I
had rental income. He said, “Name your
price” so I said £2.2 million — so I sold
them. Then I needed somewhere else to
live so I bought at Colindale Gardens.
Even though I’m now semi-retired,
I still have a few residential rental
properties across London and I have
always kept my eye out for other good
investment opportunities. I’ve spent
most of my career in property and when
we saw that we could purchase a second
apartment at the same development, we
jumped at the chance. Colindale
is an area with so much
potential and we’re
excited to see
what’s next for the
neighbourhood and
surrounding spots.
However, this is
more than just an
investment, it has
also offered a way
of bringing our
family together. While
we are currently renting
it out, we bought the
second apartment in the
development for our son who is
in Shanghai. We look forward to when
he can come and join us.
Interview by Melissa YorkI first arrived here
from China in 1967. I
studied at Middlesex
Polytechnic in Enfield and my
father opened a restaurant. He said,
“Why don’t you temporarily work in that
to help me out?” I worked there for ten
years before moving first to Australia,
where I worked in real estate, and then t
o China in 1998, where I was a bank
manager. I came back to London in 2016.
When we first came back we lived in
Golders Green, north London, where we
lived above a shop. I leased out one ofHave your say
Would you like to share
your moving story?
Email carol.lewis@
thetimes.co.ukjp
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and his wife Lily, 61,
bought a £700,000 flat
in Barnet, north
London, right