HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
25
unadministered at the commencement of this Ordinance is less than $100 or where the net value of any future estate is less than $100. Section 4 of the present Ordinance, No. 1 of 1885, requires advertisement "in the mother country of the deceased," a curious phrase. Section 5 of the new Ordinance requires instead that advertisement be made, if desirable, in the place or places where it is most likely to be effective.
9. Section 6 directs the Official Administrator to pay any unclaimed balance of an intestate either into the Treasury or under the direction of the Treasurer into an account of the Government at a named bank. The Governor has power to direct that any such sum be transferred to the general revenue of the Colony, but in the case of a balance amounting to $100 or upwards this power can only be exercised on production of a certificate by the Official Administrator that the advertisements required have been published and that five years have elapsed since such adver- tisements and that no further claim can reasonably be expected.
10. Section 7 provides that interest shall run on any unclaimed balances paid into the Treasury under the provisions of section 6. The interest will cease on transfer to the general revenue. No interest will run on amounts under $100.
11.
Provision is made by section 8 for the transfer to general revenue of unclaimed balances, other than those of intestates estates, remaining in the Supreme Court for five years or longer, and the Court is empowered to require notice to such parties as it may think fit.
12. Section 9 provides that every transfer to the general revenue under the provisions of this Ordinance shall be subject to the provisions of the Ordinance as regards refunds.
13. Section 10 provides that any claimant to any money transferred to the general revenue under the new Ordinance, or under the Unclaimed Balances Ordinance, 1885, may prosecute his claim by a petition to the Supreme Court, but it is laid down that no such petition shall be presented except within the same time and subject to the same rules of law and equity in and subject to which an action for the like purpose might be brought against a subject. This limitation of time and this exclusion of merely moral claims are based on the provisions of section 3 of the Intestates Estates Act, 1884, 47 and 48 Vict. c. 71.
which
14. A further safeguard is provided by section 11, empowers the Governor in Council to entertain any moral claim to any sum of money which may have been transferred to the general revenue under this Ordinance or the old Ordinance.
31
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.