LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES
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Notable land transactions in 1990 included grants for public utility, industrial and educational uses: a 5-hectare site on north-east Lantau for the construction of a power station; a 2-hectare site for the expansion of the Tai Po Industrial Estate; a 2-hectare site in Tuen Mun for the construction of a Light Rail Terminus with development above, and a 6.2-hectare site in Tsing Yi for the expansion of technical education facilities.
Two private treaty grants were made in the urban area: for the development of an underground carpark at Admiralty and an underground carpark-cum-shopping-centre in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Four sites with a total area of 5.77 hectares were sold under the Private Sector Participation Scheme. A total of 5 020 flats will be provided. Fifteen sites were also granted to the Hong Kong Housing Authority for the development of Home Ownership Scheme projects. These included a 1.5-hectare site at Ma On Shan and a 1.5-hectare site in Lam Tin South.
In the New Territories, five sites with a total area of 3.5 hectares were offered by Letter A/B tenders. These included a 1.27-hectare site for commercial/residential development and a 8 463-square metre site for commercial use, both in Sha Tin.
Land Registration
The Land Registration Ordinance provides for registration of all instruments affecting land - in the Land Office, one of the two major sections of the Land Division of the Registrar General's Department. Registration is by means of a memorial form containing the essential particulars of the instrument which are then placed on a register card relating to the particular piece of land or individual premises affected such as residential flats, shops and commercial and industrial premises. The register cards provide a complete picture of the title to each property from the grant of the government lease. They are available for search by the public in photostat form on payment of a small fee. The memorials and a complete copy of each registered instrument are kept and are also available for search in microfilm form by the public on payment of a fee.
The ordinance also provides that all instruments registered under it shall have priority according to their respective dates of registration, unless they are registered within one month of execution, in which case priority relates back to the date of the instrument. For charging orders made by the court and pending court actions, priority runs from the day following the date of registration. The ordinance further provides that unregistered instruments, other than bona fide leases at a rack rent for a 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. Approval in principle was given by the government during the year to investigate the merits of changing the present system of land registration to one of title registration. A working party chaired by the Registrar General comprising prominent members of the legal profession has been set up to study how the new system may be introduced.
The records of transactions affecting land on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, New Kowloon and some of the urban areas of the New Territories are kept at the Land Office, Victoria. Those relating to transactions affecting land in the remainder of the New Territories are kept in the appropriate District Land Offices in the New Territories. Before any land transaction is completed a land search to ascertain property ownership should