Under Regulation 15 of the Land Registration Regulations, the Land Registry can withhold an instrument from registration if it does not comply with any of the matters specified in section 23 of the Land Registration Ordinance. These withheld instruments are commonly known as stopped deeds.  To try to help reduce the number of stopped deeds, a Land Registry Circular Memorandum (LRCM) No. 5/05 was issued on 1 December 2005, setting out the Registry’s practice on withholding instruments from registration.  To help parties responsible for preparing instruments to avoid or correct simple and avoidable errors before lodgement, we have prepared a list of common reasons for withholding instruments and giving guidance on correct procedures.  The list is easily accessible at the Land Registry’s website. 

We were pleased to note that the stopped deed rate has dropped from 8.5% in mid 2005 to 5.7% as of March 2006.

Under the Land Registration Ordinance, there is no provision to allow the Land Registry to strike off instruments which have been withheld from registration but which are not corrected or withdrawn by the lodging party.  This has led to a number of stopped deeds being left on the “deeds pending” section of the registers for extended periods.  The existence of these stopped deeds presents conveyancing problems.  During the year the Land Registry conducted an exercise to reduce the number of long outstanding stopped deeds.  This involved sending out nearly 300 letters to identified lodging parties in November 2005 requesting them to withdraw or return instruments stopped before December 2002 for re-consideration of their registrability.  Through this exercise the number of such long outstanding stopped deeds was reduced by a little over 20% and now stands at just over 1,000.

A similar exercise for the post-December 2002 stopped deeds is being conducted in mid 2006.  New proposals for legislation that will provide means for removal of old stopped deeds were prepared during the year and will be put to the Law Society for consultation in the latter part of 2006.