ENG-1957 — Page 124

Chapter 7: Primary Production and Marketing

LAND TENURE IN THE NEW TERRITORIES

SHORTLY after the New Territories were incorporated into the Colony a Land Court was set up to hear the inhabitants' claims to tenure of land, and all existing tenures thereby established were confirmed by the Hong Kong Government and recorded in a single Block Crown Lease. Such holdings are known as Old Schedule Lots. The Land Court completed its work in 1905. All land not recorded in the Block Crown Lease was deemed to be unleased Crown Land, leases of which can be sold at public auction, as in Hong Kong and Kowloon. New Territories lands thus acquired are known as New Grant Lots. Certain prescriptive rights over 'Crown Land' have, however, always been recognized either tacitly or by official acknowledgment; most villages have rights of this kind over a greater or smaller area adjoining them, where they graze their cattle, cut grass, and bury their dead; and no Crown land in the New Territories is put up for auction without giving the nearest village or villages a chance to object. Such objections, whether on economic or geomantic grounds, are usually accepted if reasonable.

Most of the land in the New Territories is separately classified as either agricultural land or building land, and permission has to be obtained from the New Territories Administration for permission to convert land from one status to the other. Minor buildings, such as watchmen's sheds, pigsties, etc., i.e. buildings definitely concerned with farm- ing, are usually allowed to be erected on agricultural land. In cases where the owner of an Old Schedule Lot in agricultural status wishes to erect a house of traditional Chinese construction, this is usually permitted without