Customer Services and Operations : Services and Workload

The Land Registry Annual Report 2009/10

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Customer Services and Operations

HIGHLIGHT

Registration of land documents and search of land registers/land records increased 26.3% and 25.7% respectively as compared with 2008/09.
The number of IRIS Online Services subscribers reached 818 with 66 new customers since reduction of the application fee and minimum deposit for subscriber account on 1 October 2009.
More service improvements introduced including the launch of enhanced e-Memorial Form, enrichment of computer database with Chinese street names and revamp of Interactive Voice Response System.
1,036 commendations received from customers, a significant increase of 167% from 2008/09.
Received the First Runner-up of the Service Enhancement Award (Small Department category) in the Civil Service Outstanding Service Award Scheme 2009, and the Public Organisation Award in The Ombudsman's Awards 2009.

Services and Workload

The major services provided by the Land Registry are:

registration of land documents;
search of land registers and supply of copies of imaged documents and other land records; and
registration of incorporation of owners under the Building Management Ordinance.

(i) Registration of Land Documents

Documents affecting land are delivered to our Customer Centre at Queensway Government Offices for registration.

In 2009/10, 749,342 land documents were delivered for registration, an increase of 26.3% when compared with 2008/09.

Major types of documents received include sale and purchase agreements (SPAs), assignments, mortgages/ legal charges and their respective receipts/discharges/releases which collectively accounted for about 82% of all documents received during the year.

Among the SPAs of all building units delivered for registration in 2009/10, the number of SPAs of residential units and its total consideration were 131,877 (+74.7% from last year) and $495,936 million (+89.8% from last year) respectively. The number of these agreements is generally regarded as a key indicator of the level of activity in the property market.

Similar to previous years, the majority of the land transactions in 2009/10 were within the consideration range of one to two million dollars.

No. of Sale & Purchase Agreements of Residential Units by Range of Consideration

Range of Consideration	2007/08		2008/09		2009/10
( HK$ million)	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
Less than 1	19,020	13.9	9,579	12.7	10,076	7.6
1 to less than 2	50,003	36.5	30,434	40.3	48,629	36.9
2 to less than 3	23,716	17.3	13,905	18.4	25,878	19.6
3 to less than 5	23,248	16.9	11,384	15.1	26,507	20.1
5 to less than 10	13,768	10.0	6,278	8.3	13,210	10.0
10 or over	7,409	5.4	3,898	5.2	7,577	5.7
Total	137,164	100.0	75,478	100.0	131,877	100.0

Note: Figures in percentage for individual items may not add up to 100% due to rounding

(ii) Search Services

Land records are maintained by the Land Registry primarily for the purpose of providing a property-related information platform to enhance transparency and facilitate property transactions.

In 2009/10, the total number of searches of land registers and supplies of imaged copies and photocopies of land records were 5,819,397 (+25.7% from previous year) and 720,351 (+11.1% from previous year) respectively.

No. of Searches of Land Registers & Images Copies and Photocopies of Land Records Supplied

Year	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08	2008/09	2009/10
Searches of Land Registers	4,504,151	4,392,580	5,396,269	4,628,256	5,819,397
Imaged Copies and Photocopies of Land Records Supplied	670,771	648,326	704,873	648,206	720,351

Since February 2005, the Land Registry has been providing search services over the Internet via our IRIS Online Services at www.iris.gov.hk for 16 hours a day, seven days a week. The public can conduct searches on either an ad hoc or a subscription basis. Searches conducted online constituted about 90% of the total search volume. The remaining 10% were conducted over the counter. Counter search service is available at our Customer Centre in Queensway Government Offices and the New Territories Search Offices (NTSOs) in Tai Po, Yuen Long and Tsuen Wan districts.

To further promote the IRIS Online Services, the application fee and minimum deposit for subscriber accounts were reduced with effect from 1 October 2009. As a result, the number of subscribers increased by 66 (+8.8%), reaching a record of 818 by March 2010.

(iii) Owners' Corporation Services

The Land Registry is responsible for registration of incorporation of owners and search of owners' corporation records under the Building Management Ordinance. The Ordinance, which falls within the policy jurisdiction of the Home Affairs Bureau, aims to enable owners of multi-storey buildings to establish owners' corporations to deal with building management matters.

In 2009/10, 315 new owners' corporations have been formed. The total number of owners' corporations in the territory reached 9,041.