1
སཎྜསན, w• Ari* ན་མས ་ ཀ
angited to be contrary to the Governor's powers to "lawfully great" land (see Section I of Opinion), for a freehold is held
in perpetuity. Doubts would therefore arise as to whether the title was good, for instance perhaps when a mortgage was raised, or when titles derived from the original grant were
considered.
(ii) The system of land administration in Hong Kong is dependent on covenants in the lease and the power of re-entry
for breach of them. One cannot include in a freehold grant any covenants nor make a side-agreement which is automatically binding on a purchaser from the original grantee, as are the covenants in a lease. There would therefore require to be considerable legislation in Hong Kong in order to give powers to continue an analagous system of control over freehold lari.
(iii) The Resumption Ordinance only applies to Crown leased
land.
(iv) The 1898 Convention is a Treaty and the grant of sovreignty over the N.T. to the Crown by the Emperor of China was not, properly speaking, a lease (see Section II of Opinion). It has however habitually been so described. Debate would therefore be likely to arise both in legal and commercial circles as to whether a grant of freehold title was possible when the Crown only held a "lease".
(v)
The advantages of a freehold grant might be mixed. Whilst in legal terms such a title would endure in perpetuity, viewed through commercial eyes it would not perhaps be considered such a definite statement of intent by CPG as
would a lease to a defined date, say 2010, because no-one
would believe that it was the Chinese intention never to
take back the land. Moreover the Chinese might consider such a grant to be a claim to the N.T. in perpetuity.