Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1960-1961 — Page 7

PART I

INTRODUCTORY

THE Registrar General's Department was established on 1st April, 1949 by the Registrar General (Establishment) Ordinance (Cap. 100), and now comprises the Land Office, the Companies, Trade Marks, Patents, Marriages, and Births and Deaths Registries, and the Offices of the Official Receiver in Bankruptcy and Companies Winding-up, the Official Trustee, and the Official Solicitor in Lunacy. With the exception of the Marriage and Births and Deaths Registries all these Offices and Registries are along with the Headquarters of the Department located on the 11th floor of the Central Government Offices, West Wing, Lower Albert Road, Victoria. The locations of the Marriage and Births and Deaths Registries are given in Parts VIII and IX relating to these Registries.

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At the end of the year the establishment of the Department con- sisted of the Registrar General, a Deputy Registrar General, a Senior Legal Assistant, four Legal Assistants, a Senior Assistant Registrar, fourteen Assistant Registrars, two Executive Officers and 142 other officers. There was also a supernumerary staff of three Assistant Regis- trars and fifteen other officers. Table I shows how this staff, permanent and supernumerary, was distributed among the various Branches of the Department on 31st March, 1961.

Functions

PART II

LAND OFFICE

3. The principal function of the Land Office is the registration in accordance with the provisions of the Land Registration Ordinance (Cap. 128) of deeds and other instruments relating to land in Hong Kong, Kowloon, portions of New Kowloon, and a few lots in the New Territories which have been exempted from the provisions of Part II of the New Territories Ordinance (Cap. 97). The Ordinance provides that all such deeds, etc., so registered shall have priority according to the priority of their respective dates of registration, and that with the exception of bona fide leases at rack rents for any term not exceeding

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