in respect of the 343 building mortgages, which therefore averaged about $780,000 per mortgage. Table V illustrates the striking manner in which the amounts lent annually on building mortgages have risen in the past three years. The number of re-assignments and the total of the relevant considerations also rose to the new record figures of 3,948 and $463,283,000.
26. The only other items in Tables IV and V that call for special comment are the marked increase in the number of Tenancy Agreements from 633 in 1962-63 to 1,041; the appearance for the first time of the item Redevelopment Notices/Orders under the Demolished Buildings (Re-development of Sites) Ordinance, 1963, 144 of which were registered; and the grand total of considerations in all instruments, which was up by nearly $582,000,000 to the prodigious figure of $2,912,853,000.
27. On 1st April 1963 the Land Office introduced a new system of registration of deeds relating to flats and other units of multi-storey buildings. This was specially designed to cater for the now standard practice of selling buildings off in separate units of flats, shops, or floors, by assigning an undivided share in the land coupled with the right to the exclusive possession of a particular flat, etc. Until the introduction of the new system, deeds relating to such units had been registered in what were known as sub-division registers, and not infrequently the whole of a register was required for a single building. Under the new system a separate card is opened for each unit on which are recorded the same particulars as were previously entered in a folio of the sub- division registers. There is in addition a control card for each building or in the case of a large building for each floor therein, and on this are recorded in an easily understood fashion references to the individual unit cards.
28. The new system has proved to be a great success, being much more economical in time and space and greatly facilitating searches against particular flats. Whereas formerly identical opening entries had to be made by hand on every folio of the sub-division register, it is now possible to reproduce by means of a duplicator the entries on any number of cards within a very brief time, eliminating both the need to write each entry and the need to check any other than the master copy. So successful has the system been that as opportunity affords the existing sub-division registers are being replaced by cards, and it is intended ultimately to transfer all the remaining registers to cards. These registers are at present subjected to a tremendous amount of handling by searchers, and two bookbinders employed full-time can hardly keep pace with
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