Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1961-1962 — Page 12

price per unit, because many of the assignments were of two or more units.

12. Of recent years it has become the standard practice for developers to sell buildings off in separate units of shops, flats or floors. As indicated in the foregoing paragraph they do this by assigning an undivided share in the land coupled with the right to the exclusive possession of a particular flat, etc. In one case there are no less than 920 units in a building, and sometimes a unit consists of a mere 300 or 400 sq. ft. Lately a new phenomenon has presented itself in the splitting up of units between three or four owners, who thus apparently become the owners of cubicles within a flat. The growth of the numbers of buildings thus split into flats in separate ownership is illustrated by the figures given in Table V, which shows that by the end of 1961 there were 3,708 buildings split into five or more shares comprising in the aggregate 55,706 shares. The serious problems presented by fragmentation of buildings in this way were throughout the year under close study by an inter-departmental Working Party of which Mr. R. H. MUNRO, Deputy Registrar General, is Chairman, and which was by the close of the year nearing the end of its labours.

13. As noted in last year's Report the tremendous numbers of memorials now being received annually create a serious storage problem. This is well illustrated by the photograph included in this Report showing 272 books of memorials registered during the year. At the end of the year the Land Office strongroom was bulging with some 460 land registers, of which 150 are sub-division registers opened since 1956 for recording transactions relating to flats, 3,100 books of 100 memorials each, 13,800 Crown leases, 4,100 conditions of sale, grant, regrant, exchange and extension, and many other land records, all of which are constantly being referred to by the Land Office and the public. At the present rate of registrations about 100 additional square feet of space is required each year, and obviously the provision of this in the heart of the city constitutes an increasing burden on the tax-payer. Consideration is therefore being given to the question whether the memorials should be microfilmed and stored in some less expensive accommodation, the microfilms being kept at the Land Office where they could be inspected through viewers. At the same time and with the same end in view con- sideration is being given to recording transactions relating to flats on cards instead of on the present bulky sub-division registers.

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