ENG-1968 — Page 207

LAND AND HOUSING

LAND OFFICE

147

The Land Office, which is a branch of the Registrar General's Department, is responsible for the registration of all instruments affecting land; the settling and registration of conditions of sale, grant and exchange of Crown land; the issue, renewal, variation and termination of Crown leases; the granting of mining leases; and advice to the Government generally on matters relating to land.

The system of registration, introduced in 1844, is broadly similar to that in the Yorkshire Deeds Registries in England. The Land Registration Ordinance provides that all deeds and instruments registered under it shall have priority according to their respective dates of registration, and that deeds and instruments not registered (other than bona fide leases at rack rent for any term not exceeding three years) shall be absolutely null and void as against any sub- sequent bona fide purchaser or mortgagee for valuable considera- tion. Registration is therefore essential to the protection of title, but does not guarantee it.

The number of instruments registered during the year rose by 10.3 per cent from last year's total of 43,866 to 48,365. The figure included 736 assignments of whole buildings or sites (as against 526 in 1967), 20,826 assignments of flats and other units in multi- storey buildings (against 19,002), 2,799 agreements for sale of such flats and units (against 3,935), and 10,726 mortgages (against 8,363). As a consequence of the decline in new building projects, figures remained low in the registrations of building mortgages (55 as in 1967), and in orders excluding premises from the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, which usually have to be obtained prior to redevelopment of the sites of old buildings (11 against 16). Orders requiring redevelopment of the sites of demolished buildings totalled 122 (against 174). The number of searches, which, as a search must be made prior to every land transaction, provides a good index to the state of the property market, rose by 24.9 per cent from 47,092 to 58,810. Compared with 1967 the grand total of considerations recorded in all instruments registered rose by $72,000,000, or 3.3 per cent, to $2,262,000,000.

The volume of work in several other sections of the Land Office was influenced by the prevailing market conditions. During the year, 110 conditions of sale, grant, exchange, etc were registered