LIFE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES
97
J, FUNG Yiu Tsan, residing at No. 69 in this village, have a farm hut and a piece of waste threshing ground at Lot Nos. 94 and 95, which I hereby sell to a junior clansman FUNG Tak Yau, because I am old, have no son to support me and cannot make a living or obtain the money I need by borrowing. The price agreed upon is twenty-four silver dollars. This has been paid in full, after weighing, to me personally; the money is to be taken home for me to spend; hereafter the above-named payer will assume ownership of the farm hut and waste threshing ground, including the walls, tiles, ordure pit and boundary stones. From now on no arbitrary claims may be made, for this sale is voluntary and payment has been made in full and as agreed. This agreement is irrevocable. Should this property be found to have been acquired under suspicious circumstances, the vendor alone will be held responsible; the above payer is not liable. This written agreement is hereby prepared as proof and for retention by FUNG Tak Yau.
Another, drawn up during the difficult days of the Japanese occupation in 1942 reads,
This deed of sale on land is drawn up by the vendor CHAN Wan Shing. Because he has not money for purchasing provisions, he first offered to sell to his kinsfolk the nine plots of land, total area three dau chung, located at Nam Pei Tau in Shek Pik Village, bequeathed to him by his grandfather, but none of them are interested. Then, through the medium of a middleman, KWOK Lai Pai of Tai O was approached and he undertook to buy them at a current price of $165.00. Again, through the middleman, CHAN Wan Shing has received a sum of $165 for himself, and with effect from the date of this deed, the lots will become the permanent property of KWOK Lai Pai. For fear that verbal agreement may not constitute evidence, this deed is executed as a certificate to confirm the transaction.
During a land court held during the Shek Pik settlement just as a case was being settled in the present possessor's favour in default of proof of the plaintiff's contention that the original document was a mortgage and not a sale (and therefore redeemable, according to custom, despite subsequent transactions) the defendant pulled out a new sheaf of papers for inspection. Among them was a white deed which proved to be the original mortgage of 1918. He thereby defeated his own case. It turned out that he had never bothered to read the papers handed over to him with the white deed of sale drawn up during the Japanese Occupation. Similarly, a sixty year old mortgage elsewhere on Lantau which was discovered in the land registers when succession was being determined, was honoured by the mortgagees, though grudgingly, the real point at issue being the amount of compensation and not the return of the land, as no figure was stated in the original entry.
12 This is recognised in the provisions of the New Territories Ordinance Cap. 97 where the registration of a so manager in the Land Office is obligatory. A change of manager can only be secured after the vacancy has been filled at a properly advertised clan meeting and notices of election, posted by the District Office, have expired without objection, Prospective sales of two land have to be reported to the Assistant Land Officer (the D.O.) and advertised by him, again without objection, before a sale is allowed. Trustees, too, are not permitted to sell land belonging to minors unless the Land Officer has given his