Wong Cho Lam and Leanne Li Cheated in New House Renovation
Wong Cho Lam (王祖藍) and Leanne Li (李亞男) were cheated in their new house renovations. The couple, who are planning to wed on February 14, spent over $13 million HKD on a 4,000 square feet house in Sai Kung. Cho Lam set aside an additional $3 million HKD to renovate the three-story house, but in the end, Cho Lam ended up having to pay over $5 million HKD for shoddy renovations, more than 70 percent of the original budget.
There were many impractical designs around the house. The air conditioner was placed right above the stove’s range hood in the kitchen, rainwater leaked through the kitchen’s stainless steel wall, and the electrical switches were all placed in the same corner of the house. One month after moving into the new home, there were already cracked walls, broken doors, water leaking through the ceiling, and more design problems.
The house was renovated by interior designer Joe Yiu (姚俊杰), whom Cho Lam met at church in 2013. Joe was a recovering drug addict. Touched by Joe’s enthusiasm and his journey to recovery, Cho Lam opted to leave Joe in charge with the renovations of his new home.
Joe began working on Cho Lam’s new house in August 2013 and initially promised Cho Lam that renovations would only cost around $3.3 million HKD. However, a few months after starting the project, Joe raised the budget to $3.8 million HKD and ultimately to $5 million HKD.
Cho Lam initially did not think the budget increase was a problem, but about a year through the renovation, a friend told Cho Lam that he might have been conned. Cho Lam then decided to get a friend to help him manage the budget of the project, and discovered that Joe had added many unnecessary construction features without consulting Cho Lam beforehand.
When Cho Lam requested Joe to give him the account numbers, Joe ignored him and refused to give Cho Lam the keys to the house’s garage. Cho Lam later notified the police and Joe had no choice but to ask Cho Lam for a peaceful settlement. Cho Lam refused to pay the additional $2 million HKD towards the renovation and recruited the help of a claims adjuster.
Source: ihktv.com
This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.
It seems Wong Cho Nam is already a multimillionaire. Hope he can maintain his status forever.
Well, he is the only current managing by TVB is listed in A-list Chinese artists by China media. You can tell how much he can make. His name is boosted well with Running Man China.
i would never trust an interior design with renovation in hk. they always cheat. i paid 120% more than the initial discussed fee and the job still wasn’t finished. i prefer looking for older sifus who may contribute less ideas on decorating but are more responsible and practical with their work.
Yes, he has been conned! Where the air conditioner have been put should ring a bell that something is wrong! It doesn’t make sense that he also put the air discharge tube on the left of the wall, it should be “hidden” in the hood and not visible! Cho Lam better sue him to get his money back …
He only has himself to blame -.- sure, you can be open hearted and help people finding their way back to the right path, but don’t blindly trust people? That’s just naive -.- and maybe because they are too rich to care, but if you love to build your love nest, you would pay more attentions to it than just “here is money, build me a dream house” >_> I understand if cho lam was busy, but the gf can overlook it? She’s not that famous to be that busy :/? Anyway, it just seem they don’t really care -.- or not caring enough :/
since it is their marital home, they should be overlooking the renovation…if the guy is busy, the gf should do so. renovations should never be left completely in the hands of the interior designer. so foolish to allow a person he hardly knows to do the renovation.
To be kind, showing compassion is one thing but WCL has displayed some stupidity. With that kind of money involved, and him/Leanne being busy with filming, one would think one of his family member would help with the supervision. Foolish **
hi,its not stupid but trust,he knows that guy,cho lam knows him from the church, who can ever imagine a church-goer will ever cheat?
In reality, not every church goer is honest and true.
It’s so simple to sit behind the computer and start start typing. Everyone makes mistakes and even as a figure of speech, who said WCL is blaming anyone?
Unless you know them personally, you really can not comment on how “busy” they are. Leanne can be busy and you wouldn’t even know. Just because she’s not as famous doesn’t make her any less busy with other things. Wedding planning doesn’t happen over night and surely not something you pull out of your ass.
They made a wrong judgement call – it will be fixed. Things will be ok.
I’ve seen people who just as busy, with less money than them. And their house is beautiful. My point was for their so called love nest, they don’t seem to care enough >_> and just because I said he has only himself to blame that doesn’t mean he is blaming everyone…
I know a few church goers who claimed to be God fearing Christians, but their actions may make people sick to the stomach. Why do they even bother! Lying to themselves!!! No need to run their mouth how holy they are… Show through your actions and your heart… Be real!!!
A devout Christian being conned by his devout Christian fellow church member.
That’s not surprising.
For any renovation you must always allocate more tha quoted. But the renovator seems incompetent.
i think its more cheating than incompetent if you have exceeded with 70% of the original budget,its also unbelievable that he didnt asked wong cho lam for permission when he did this,in the end we are talking about exceeding 2 millions hkd for renovations.in other countries you can buy a appartment for that ammount.
Yea, with renovations, you should always be prepared to go over budget, but he was definitelyyy conned in this case lol. Hopefully he gets a fair amount of his cash back.
Never ever trust a drug addict…they are weak people and never fully clean up. They are great liars and will convince you they’ve changed…they never change. People and organizations who want to help drug addicts are idiots. Spend your efforts helping the families and friends of drug addicts instead…they deserve it more.
LOL…that’s just dumb.
The title made it sound like they both cheated on each other in the new house.