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that some transaction had taken place during the occupational
period.
•
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It is also doubtful whether they ever really dealt with
an estate in the land at all or that they were ever intended to
do so, in the buildings and not land were dealt with. Merely to
make them "statutory deeds" as suggested would not remedy this
defect unless by legislation further operative parts were read
into the "deed." It would obviously be impracticable to attempt
to deal with the different discrepancies in all "deeds" by one
general enactment.
mind
Le.
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In considering this question it is necessary to bear in
(a) aire
(b)
that the Land Registry here is not a register of
land but of deeds only,
that there can be no possible objection to a person
who has an estate in the land dealing with it as he
pleases during the occupational period provided he
does so in accordance with the law and the terms on
which he holds it.
(c) that there are cases where unauthorised dealings with
property took place during the occupational period
in the absence of owners or mortgagees and, in other
cases where the owners or mortgagees were in Hong
Kong, under duress.
The members of this Society are of the opinion that the
documents used for the purpose of dealing with land during the
occupational period are of such doubtful effect that in the event
of their coming into the title of any property they would be a
source of great embarrassment to practitioners advising clients
on their title and therefore they and all other documents used in
Japanese conveyancing should be kept off the title and all record
of them in due course expunged from the register of deeds here
and that the titles to properties which have been dealt with
during the Japanese occupation should be put right by a proper Assignment of the properties to the persons who now claim to be
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