CO129-595-5 Validity of registration of land during Japanese occupation 1-1-1945 - 31-12-1946 — Page 10

Ref: No. L.0. 22/46.

LAND OFFICE,

10th January, 1946.

10

The Secretary,

Hong Kong Law Society, HONG KONG.

Dear Sir,

Now that the Land Office is open for the registration

of deeds, I take this opportunity to bring some matters to the

notice of your Society:-

1.

THE LAND OFFICE DURING JAPANESE OCCUPATION.

For those who are not well acquainted with what

happened to the Land Office during the Occupation, a brief

account will, I think, be useful.

This department was taken over by the Japanese

Authorities who, sometime in the middle of 1942, ordered that

every house owner must register with the "House Registration

Office." The public seemed to have responded rather well to

this Order with the result that there are now in the Land Office

one hundred and sixty volumes of Japanese registers containing

particulars (with plans attached) of the houses which were

registered.

During the Occupation, the Authorities permitted,

for the most part, only reassignments and assignments to be

registered. These were generally recorded by striking out the

name of the previous owner in the Japanese Register and by

substituting the name of the purchaser or, in the case of a

reassignment, by striking out the name of the mortgagee.

Counterparts of the reassignment or assignment and other papers

in connection with the property and its sale, were placed in a

brown envelope (which also contained the original application

for registration). These envelopes were, and still are, kept

in this office. The old Land Office Registers, i.e., those

which were kept up to 1941, were not used for registering any

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