XN000022-1996-01-24 — Page 60

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Reply:

(b)

(c)

Mr President,

(a)

(b)

(c)

whether, given the existing policy under which the Government has the right to resume the land if the respective Crown rent is not duly paid by its owner, the Government agrees that the existing arrangement of the Government resuming the land on account of non-payment of Crown rent without issuing demand notes to the owners concerned is in contravention of the principle of equity; and

in regard to a case in which an owner who made enquiries about payment of Crown rent matters was asked to pay an "enquiry fee" afterwards, what are the reasons for levying such a charge without giving any prior notice of the charge?

For land in the urban area, demand notes to land owners for payment of Government rents are issued by the Treasury. In the rural area of the New Territories, the addresses of a vast majority of land owners are either imprecise or incomplete. It has therefore been a long established practice that land owners collect the demand notes for Government rents at the relevant District Lands Office and make payments at the nearest Sub-Treasury, which is normally in the same building where the District Lands Office is located;

although we do not send demand notes to owners of land in the rural area, efforts are made to contact them to remind them to pay Government rents before we initiate re-entry proceedings. Even if a re- entry notice has been registered, land owners still have the right to petition the Governor or to apply to the High Court for relief against the re-entry. It should be pointed out however that there has not been any case of re-entry for non-payment of Government rents in at least the last ten years; and

we do not charge a fee for answering public enquiries about outstanding Government rents, but a fee has to be paid in advance if a written reply is required. This practice is well known among those concerned, in particular among the professionals who may represent the land owners.

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