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LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES
The Land Office is responsible for the registration of all instruments affecting land; the drafting, completion and registration of conditions of sale, grant and exchange of government land; the granting of mining leases; the registration of owners' corporations; the apportionment of government rents and premia; and the recovery of outstanding rents. It also provides conveyancing services for the Housing Authority in connection with the sale of flats built under the Home Ownership Scheme and for the Financial Secretary Incorporated in connection with re-grants, interest-free loans to schools and the purchase of properties for government staff quarters and group housing schemes for the elderly. The Land Office gives legal and other advice to the government on matters relating to land.
Since June 1981, under the Land Registration Ordinance, all memorials delivered to the Land Office for registration have been microfilmed. All the 2 096 156 memorials registered before that date had been microfilmed by the end of 1984. They have been transferred to satellite storage and are available for search at the Land Office in microfilm form only.
Work on the computerisation of Land Office register cards, with a view to introducing a computerised land registration system, continued on schedule during the year,
The Land Registration Ordinance provides that all instruments registered under it shall have priority according to their respective dates of registration. This provision applies unless they are registered within one month of execution, in which case priority generally relates back to the date of the instrument. In the case of charging orders and pending actions, priority runs from the day following the date of actual registration. The ordinance also provides that unregistered instruments, other than bona fide leases at a rack rent for any term not exceeding three years, shall be null and void as against any subsequent bona fide purchaser or mortgagee for valuable consideration. Registration is therefore essential to the protection of title, but does not guarantee it.
During the year, 262 934 instruments were registered at the Land Office, compared with 176 625 in 1984. Detailed statistics are at Appendix 29. At the end of the year, the card index of property owners contained the names of 498 843 owners, an increase of 30 828 over the previous year. Some own several properties throughout the territory, but most are owners or part-owners of small, individual flats.
Important Transactions
Important land transactions in 1985 included the sale by public auction of a site on Hong Kong Island of 10 690 square metres for commercial and/or residential development. This site is located in Queensway and was part of the former Victoria Barracks.
A further site of 3 400 square metres on Hong Kong Island, situated in Harbour Road, Wan Chai, was also sold by public auction for commercial or hotel development. Both this site and the Victoria Barracks site produced keen bidding, indicative of the upturn in the property market following the initialling of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984.
The sale by private treaty grant to the Mass Transit Railway Corporation of a site of about 27 hectares for its Pak Chai Wan depot was completed in April. Comprehensive development above the depot will provide 27 000 square metres of commercial floor space, about 7 500 apartments and a full range of supporting facilities. The development will be phased, with full completion expected in seven to 10 years' time. Pak Chai Wan is one of seven sites granted by private treaty to the MTRC for commercial and residential development at stations located along the route of the Hong Kong Island section of the railway which came into operation in May.
In Kowloon, a site of 6 400 square metres at the junction of Canton Road and Peking Road in the busy Tsim Sha Tsui tourist area was sold by auction for commercial and/or