29. Every instrument presented for registration in the Land Office, together with the memorial thereof, is scrutinized prior to its registration. Where any error is discovered in any instrument or memorial, the instrument is 'stopped' and returned for correction to the solicitor certifying the memorial. Of the 43,303 instruments registered in 1967-68, 12,124 (27.9%) were 'stopped' for the correction of a total of 20,299 errors, which fell into the following categories:
Omission of dates/Memorial Nos./Chinese characters Incorrect spelling of words/typing errors
Incorrect description of parcels
Stopped because of errors found in connected instrument Authentication of amendments/deletions/additions required
5,517
5,004
4,907
1,296
862
Incorrect/insufficient description of parties
Incorrect/insufficient description of consideration
Incorrect/insufficient description of plan
761
325
294
Incorrect/insufficient execution
Incorrect/insufficient stamp duty
Incorrect/insufficient registration fee
Incorrect/insufficient information on partition
278
224
216
155
Incorrect/insufficient description of Crown rent
100
Suggestion by Land Office for improvement of instrument Land Officer's consent required for registration of
instrument
290
70
...
Total
20,299
Searches
30. An essential preliminary to every land transaction is a search in the land registers to ascertain who is registered as the owner of the property and what, if any, incumbrances are registered against it. Under the Land Registration Fees Regulations, a fee of $1 is payable for each record produced, but where more than one hundred records relating to the same subdivided building are produced at the same time the fee is $100. To facilitate the operation of this system, books of one hundred $1 search tickets are available for purchase by solicitors, whose clerks surrender one ticket for each record produced.
31. During the year 46,891 searches were made by members of the public, 5,862 (11.1%) less than the previous year's total. The vast majority of these searches were made by solicitors' clerks who are
11