Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 496

APPENDIX TO REPORT FROM THE LAND COMMISSION OF 1886-87.

10. The Crown reserves to itself by the Lease the right of determining the Lease and resuming possession of the ground. when required by the Government for public purposes, on 3 months' notice and payment to the lessee of a full and fair compensation to be fairly and impartially made by the Surveyor General. Has this right of resumption by the Crown on payment of the Surveyor General's valuation occasioned any harm or inconvenience to your knowledge?

11. Has it any effect upon the value of the property?

12. Does it act in any way to the prejudice of its transfer?

13. And what is your opinion upon the clause generally?

تو

14. Is it desirable to have a simpler form of Crown Lease? Would there be any objection to embody the usual provi- sions in an Ordinance and to confine the Crown Lease to a description of the parties and to the property leased?

15. When a lot is sold, pickets, and in some cases boundary stones are fixed in the ground to mark its boundaries. These are frequently removed in the course of building operations by the contractor or his workmen, and it is subsequently found out that the lot has become altered in measurements. How do you propose that the lessee should be dealt with in such cases with the view to keeping his Title to the Lot strictly in order?

16. The owner of a Lot which adjoins vacant ground has a width upon which he can build 3 houses. He builds 5 under one roof of which 2 and part of a third are over the boundary of his Lot on the previously vacant ground to which he has no Title. The lot is sold with the 5 houses described as erected thereon. What steps as to measurement are usually taken by a purchaser to ascertain that in buying the 5 houses they are all comprised in the vendor's Title which is described by Lot and not by houses?

17. Is it the case that frequently on sales and purchases of houses that neither the vendor nor purchaser can establish by measurement or otherwise that a house which is sold or purchased really forms part of the Lot comprised in the vendor's Title Deeds?

18. Are there many cases where a purchaser accepts a vendor's Title to a Lot which by the Lease he purports to sell is described as in one situation when the property he takes possession of under his purchase deed is found to bo actually in another situation?

19. Generally as to boundaries, are they so ill-defined by the Leases, particularly the Leases granted during the first 30 years after the foundation of the Colony, that by reason of the variation of boundaries, buildings, formation of private streets and alleys, and otherwise such boundaries cannot be even approximately identified?

20. Or, with originally well defined Lease boundaries have such boundaries been changed with changes in building by successive owners as to render the boundaries so unrecognisable that they cannot be located as approximating the boundaries as described by the Leases?

21. Or, when the boundary of a Lot is sought for and cannot be ascertained is it found that both Lease description and change of building are the causes ?

22. What from your experience and in your judgment is the most approved manner of protecting boundaries of Lots from obliteration during a long term of years so as to cause the least trouble of identification when the ground and buildings of the Colony are dealt with?

23. A Building Lease contains a lessee's covenant to build to the satisfaction of the Surveyor General, and the style of house is limited in some localities to European and in others to Chinese. Is there any inconvenience to the lessees or the tenants in this restriction?

24. Do you consider that with varying Colonial circumstances the restriction as to the class of house to be built should from time to time be modified to meet such circumstances?

25. Would it be advisable for the present limits to be fixed by Ordinance, leaving by such Ordinauce a course open 40 amendment from time to time? Or should it be left to the Surveyor General, or a Crown Land Board with the approval of the Governor ?

26. What is your opinion as to the localities where European houses ought alone to be built? Or should there be any restriction?

27. When the ground comprised in a Lease is dealt with the document,-assignment, settlement, mortgage or other instrument affecting it,-must be registered with the proper Officer under a covenant in the Lease. A Registration Ordi- nance [No. 3 of 1844] provides a method of registration by Memorial and regulates the priorities of the documents regis- tered the system of registration being more a registration of Titles than of Deeds. Does this system of registration answer any useful purpose or in your opinion can it be improved?