Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1967-1968 — Page 16

26. Despite the decrease in the number of assignments the number of mortgages rose from 8,293 in 1966-67 to 8,661, including 47 building mortgages. The grand total of mortgage considerations, however, fell to $683,449,000, 26.6% below last year's total of $930,844,000, and 58.6% below the record total of $1,651,911,000 in 1964-65 when bank and other loans were easy to get in the boom conditions then prevailing. The figure included $18,799,000 in respect of the 47 building mortgages, which therefore averaged about $400,000 each. The number of re- assignments rose by 280 (4.8%) to the new record figure of 6,085, but the relevant considerations dropped by $136,078,000 (23.3%) to $447,898,000.

27. The only other items in Tables V and VI that call for special mention are the sharp decline in the number of Agreements for Sale and Purchase from 7,688 to 3,325, possibly reflecting an unwillingness on the part of intending purchasers to become committed during the disturbances from May to November; the further decline from 25 to 11 in the number of Exclusion Orders made under Section 38 of the Land- lord and Tenant Ordinance; the decrease from 244 to 184 in the number of Re-development Notices served under Section 3 of the Demolished Buildings (Re-development of Sites) Ordinance; and the grand total of considerations in all instruments, which was down by 24% from $2,695,675,000 last year to $2,048,609,000, the lowest figure since 1960-61.

28. All deeds relating to flats and other units in new multi-storey buildings have for the past five years been registered on cards in accordance with the new card registration system described in the 1965-66 Report. This system has been so successful that it has been decided to transfer all the records now contained in the old type bound registers on to cards. Since the maximum benefit of the new system is obtained in the case of subdivided multi-storey buildings, the existing subdivision registers relating to such buildings were dealt with first, and by 31st March 1968 the records in all of the 198 subdivision registers had been transferred to cards. At the same time damaged folios in the old registers relating to lots, sections and subsections owned as single entities are being replaced by cards, which not only eliminates the need for the damaged folios to be repaired by the bookbinder but also reduces the number of folios which will ultimately have to be converted to cards when the old registers are dealt with on a systematic programme.

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