After the Provisional Agreement: Unauthorised Works, a Registered Order, or a Stigmatised Flat — How Hong Kong Law Separates a Defect in Title from a Defect in the Property

Related guides: the fifteen-year root of title, Second Schedule Part A clauses 7, 9 and 10, sections 12 and 12A, Cap. 128 section 3 and Cap. 123 sections 24(4A) and 24C are already quoted provision by provision in Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks. The provisional agreement's place in the transaction is in Buying Property in Hong Kong: What the Solicitor Does.

The short version

Many people assume that finding something after signing the provisional agreement means they can walk, or that a clean land search means a clean property. The Ordinance says otherwise in at least two places.

• The law treats a defect in title and a defect in the property as two different things. Cap. 219 Second Schedule Part A clause 3 puts the property's physical condition on the purchaser in a single sentence; Cap. 123 section 14(2)(a) says, from the other direction, that approving plans and consenting to works confers no title to land. *Two Ordinances each disclaiming the other's subject — but neither of them says that one physical thing cannot touch both sides. Neither Ordinance answers that question. For the unauthorised-structure side, see two Court of Appeal judgments — Spark Rich, CACV 249/1998, and CACV 79/2009, both set out in section 1.*
• None of the four words readers use is a legal term. 釘契, 凶宅, 兇宅 and 踢契 — none of them is used in the Ordinances.
• A clean land search is not a clean property — and an entry is not necessarily permanent either. Registration under section 24(2C) is discretionary; the Buildings Department itself says that sending an order to the Land Registry is not a step the Ordinance obliges it to take, but the same answer goes on to say that under current practice it sends both the order and the record of its compliance to be registered (the Chinese version says the entry is taken off once the order has been complied with); among the older orders there may be some that never reached the register; and section 24(2A) allows an order to be served on the owner of adjoining land instead.
• The cost running with the property was designed that way. Section 24(4)'s default is recovery from the person served; once the order is registered, section 24(4A) shifts it to whoever owns the property on the date the demolition is completed. The paper put to the Legislative Council described the registration as protection for prospective buyers.
• Whether you may refuse title, withdraw, or raise a requisition turns on what your own agreement says — for the reason in section 8: the law's own structure makes that document decisive.

1. Is what you found a defect in title, or a defect in the property?

Hong Kong law treats these as two different things, and the consequences are not the same. And one thing has to be said straight away: treating them as two questions is not the same as saying one physical thing can raise only one of them. Each Ordinance marks out its own subject. Neither writes that sentence.

Cap. 219 Second Schedule Part A clause 3, in full:

In plain terms: the clause does not say the vendor owes nothing. It says something more basic — under this set of conditions, the property's physical condition sits on the purchaser's side of the line.

The other door is in another Ordinance. Cap. 123 section 14(2)(a) provides that neither approval of plans nor consent to the commencement of building works is to be deemed to confer any title to land, or to waive a term of any lease. *That provision is quoted in section 10 of Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks. The buildings system does not speak to title; the conveyancing system does not speak to physical condition. Each marks out its own subject; neither answers whether one physical thing can raise both kinds of question.*

And clause 3 does not stand alone. Clause 6(2) of the same Part closes the compensation route:

Read together, the mechanism appears: a matter falling within clause 3 is outside compensation. ⚠ But clause 6(2) is about compensation. It does not say that a clause 3 matter can never be a ground of objection to title.

But the same Part gives the purchaser a vendor's warranty, and it is bounded at both ends.

In one sentence: the warranty reaches as far as what the vendor knew or could have ascertained on reasonable inquiry — and stops at anything the purchaser is aware of or could have ascertained on reasonable inspection of the property. What a viewing would have shown and what it would not are treated differently by the text itself.

One gate travels with every clause above. Cap. 219 section 36 provides that the covenants and conditions in the Second Schedule may be incorporated into any instrument by reference. So all of it is a default set on offer, not a rule the law imposes on your transaction. In an agreement that does not incorporate the Second Schedule, none of these clauses appears at all.

Two Hong Kong judgments are on this exact question. The first: Spark Rich (China) Ltd v Valrose Ltd, CACV 249/1998, was a purchaser’s unauthorised-structure objection to a vendor’s title. The property was a first-floor residential unit at 16 South Bay Road including the roof and a "penthouse" — a roofed structure later enclosed by placing windows between its brick pillars and parapet walls, work which does not appear to have been authorised under the Buildings Ordinance, and about which the Building Authority had made no complaint in over 40 years. The vendor answered the requisition with two surveyors’ reports and counsel’s opinion that enforcement was unlikely; the purchaser refused to complete and called the contract off. The Court of Appeal (Mortimer VP, Godfrey and Rogers JJA) dismissed the vendor’s appeal on 9 March 1999.

What was not in dispute, under the heading "The issue":

And the court declined to define the line by formula, under the heading "What is the test?":

What it put in place of a formula was a burden and a question. Same heading:

Read the two together and three things follow. The burden is the vendor’s, not the purchaser’s. The measure is not the probability of enforcement but whether the risk is one the purchaser can safely be advised to disregard. And opinion evidence that enforcement is unlikely does not by itself discharge it — the court said so in terms, on facts where the vendor had produced exactly that. Godfrey JA added, under the heading "Conclusion", that a solicitor might properly say such action was unlikely, more probably than not would never be taken, and that the risk was small, and still be unable to answer the question in the affirmative. The same passage closes:

A later Court of Appeal decision applies that test. Lucky Dragon Corporation Limited v Speedy Vantage Limited, CACV 79/2009 (Rogers VP, Le Pichon JA and Sakhrani J; heard 4 September 2009, judgment handed down 16 September 2009).

The heading records an appeal from HCMP 778/2008, brought "IN THE MATTER of Section 12 of the Conveyancing and Property Ordinance, Cap.219" and "IN THE MATTER of a contract (“the Agreement”) dated 4 February 2008" for the sale of Ground Floor, No.4 Elgin Street, Hong Kong. The plaintiff is the purchaser, Lucky Dragon Corporation Limited; the defendant is the vendor, Speedy Vantage Limited. *So it is a section 12 vendor-and-purchaser summons: the same shape of dispute as Spark Rich, a purchaser objecting to a vendor's title on the strength of unauthorised building works.*

The facts, in outline. The price was $13 million and the deposits $1.3 million in total. The purchaser's solicitors raised three requisitions on the title deeds, none of them directed at unauthorised building works. Days before completion the purchaser's director found notices on the gate from an agent of the Building Authority; an inspection on 31 March 2008 found two unauthorised works — the approved staircase between ground floor and cockloft removed and its stairwell slabbed over, and the ceiling void facing Elgin Street slabbed over (¶¶9-10). The purchaser raised a late requisition and rescinded; the vendor rescinded in turn and forfeited the deposit (¶¶12-13).

What the Buildings Department wrote, and what the court made of it. At ¶14 the letter of 10 April 2008 stated:

That was not enough. At ¶37 the court noted that the letter "did not state that no enforcement action would be taken in respect of the unauthorised building works", and at ¶38:

When a late requisition may still be raised. At ¶20:

Both limbs were satisfied on those facts. Reinstatement could not be confined to the property itself: it would have taken away part of the floor of the front cockloft, which is in separate ownership — "it may amount to some 20% or more" — and the effect of enforcement would be "forced co-habitation" between the two owners (¶23). The court concluded at ¶24:

And on due diligence, at ¶28:

Only one of the six approved drawings had been supplied, and the drawing that showed the parapet wall and the void was not among them (¶26).

What "enforcement" means here. The court set out Buildings Ordinance section 24 and summarised the Building Authority's remedies at ¶31 — an order to reinstate or to redo the works in compliance, registration of the order in the Land Registry, and, if the work is not done, demolition or alteration by the Authority with the cost recoverable from whoever owns the land at the date the work is completed. Only the defaulting owner's interest is exposed to those remedies (¶32), and whether the works also breached the Government lease does not change the analysis (¶34). The question then became, at ¶35:

*And the test it applied is the Spark Rich test.* At ¶36:

The outcome. At ¶40:

The appeal was dismissed (¶¶41, 43).

⚠ What these two judgments do not reach. Both are unauthorised-structure cases: neither says anything about a stigmatised flat (section 6) or about misrepresentation under Cap. 284. Both are decisions between a vendor and a purchaser about title, not decisions about what the Buildings Department will do. And they decide no reader's case: which side a particular discovery falls on, and whether you may refuse title, depends on your own facts. This last point matters most: CACV 79/2009 decided the facts in front of it — the "no doubt" at ¶24 is about a reinstatement that would have cut into a neighbour's floor area and forced two owners to share, not a general rule that unauthorised works always go to the root of title.

2. The words you use do not appear in the statute book

僭建, 釘契, 踢契, 凶宅 — four words, and not one of them is a term of Hong Kong law.

The law's own word is in subsidiary legislation. Building (Minor Works) Regulation (Cap. 123N), Schedule 1 Part 1:

The word "unauthorized" (違例) is defined in Cap. 123N, the Regulation made under the Buildings Ordinance.

And the definition points straight back. 「違例」 means erected or carried out in contravention of any provision of the Ordinance. You call it an unauthorised structure; the Ordinance calls it 違例; and both are describing the same thing — whether the Buildings Ordinance was contravened.

The Government uses the reader's word too, and says in the same breath that it is a nickname. In a Chinese-language reply tabled in the Legislative Council on 13 May 2026, the Administration describes the Buildings Department serving a demolition order on an owner and registering it at the Land Registry, and adds a parenthesis noting that this is colloquially called 釘契. In other words: 釘契 is a colloquial name for a statutory act.

3. A clean land search is not a clean property

And the official sources say so themselves.

Route one: registering an order is discretionary. Cap. 123 section 24(2C) says the Building Authority may cause an order to be registered at the Land Registry; section 24C(4) says the Building Authority shall register a warning notice. Both were added by 15 of 2004, sections 21 and 22. *Both provisions are quoted in section 10 of Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks and are not requoted here.*

But the "shall" has a condition in front of it. Section 24C(1)(d) requires the notice itself to specify a date:

In plain terms: section 24C(4)'s shall only bites where the building or works were not demolished or altered before the date the notice itself specified. So the may/shall contrast is sharper than it looks and also narrower — the mandatory half is itself conditional.

Route two: the order can be registered against the land next door. Section 24(2A):

In one sentence: where the works are connected to other land and occupied or used by that other land's owner or occupier, the order is served not on the owner of the land the works sit on but on the owner of that other land. Section 24C(3) does the same for a warning notice. So a search of your own lot can be clean while an order about the same works sits on the title next door.

Route three: the official sources do not agree.

<table> <caption>Registration of a Buildings Ordinance section 24 order: what six sources say. Sources: Buildings Ordinance (Cap. 123) s. 24(2C) (version in force 1 March 2026); Buildings Department FAQ on statutory orders, https://www.bd.gov.hk/en/resources/faq/index_statutory_orders.html; Land Registry search FAQ, https://www.landreg.gov.hk/en/faq/faq_search_2.htm; Buildings Department practice note (2010); Estate Agents Authority Circulars on Practitioners' Conduct 07-05 (CR) (September 2007) and 10-01 (CR) (April 2010).</caption> <tr><th>Source</th><th>On registration of a section 24 order</th></tr> <tr><td>Buildings Ordinance s. 24(2C)</td><td><strong>may</strong></td></tr> <tr><td>Buildings Department FAQ</td><td><strong>sending an order to the register is not a step the Ordinance obliges it to take</strong>; but the same answer goes on to say that <strong>under current practice the Department sends both the order and the record of its compliance to the Land Registry to be registered</strong> (the Chinese version says the entry is taken off once the order has been complied with); and among the older orders there may be some that never reached the register</td></tr> <tr><td>Land Registry FAQ</td><td><strong>may</strong></td></tr> <tr><td>Buildings Department practice note (2010)</td><td><strong>a majority-of-cases statement, not an absolute one</strong></td></tr> <tr><td>Estate Agents Authority Circular 07-05 (CR) (September 2007)</td><td>a section 24 order <strong>will</strong> be registered</td></tr> <tr><td>Estate Agents Authority Circular 10-01 (CR) (April 2010)</td><td>narrows the same point to <strong>most cases</strong>; and says that where an order has been complied with, a letter confirming compliance is usually registered as well</td></tr> </table>

Note the last two rows. The Estate Agents Authority is a statutory regulator and those circulars are what front-line agents are trained on. The 2007 circular says will; the same regulator's 2010 circular narrows that to most cases only, and adds that unauthorised works can exist even where no order has been registered at the Land Registry. So the statute writes a power, the institutions describe a practice, and practice can change.

And the Buildings Department's answer has a second half. The same answer goes on to say that, under current practice, the Department sends both the order and the record of its compliance to the Land Registry to be registered. The Chinese version of the same answer does not say quite the same thing: it says the Department sends the order for registration and cancels it once the order has been complied with. The two versions are two sides of one point — the register is meant to reflect compliance, not only to record the order. *So: the Ordinance's word is may, and the Department's own account of its current practice is that it does. A power and a practice, not a contradiction — but a practice is not a statutory right, and it can change.*

The Buildings Department has a second sentence, and it is blunter. In the same FAQ it states that premises with no statutory order does not necessarily mean the premises is free of unauthorised building works, and advises prospective purchasers to inspect the premises and check approval plans and minor works records. The regulator says the clean record is not the answer.

And "a clean search" is not one thing — it depends which search was ordered. The Land Registry states that a Current enquiry shows only the latest transaction and those incumbrances now subsisting, while a Full (historical and current) enquiry shows every transaction registered against the property. The land register itself carries a Deeds Pending Registration section listing documents already lodged but not yet registered — and the Registry says in terms that those documents may or may not eventually be registered. And there is a third layer that is not in the register at all: the Unposted Memorial List, of documents lodged for registration where no entry has yet been made in the land register. It has to be asked for separately, and the Registry states that it can be viewed free of charge. On the buildings side, the Department names two routes for comparing the physical premises against the paper: the Building Information Centre and the online BRAVO system, for approved plans and minor works records. So "clean" needs three things stated with it: which search, on what date, and whether the unposted list was checked too. (Fees are as published by the departments.)

Route four is in a different Ordinance. Cap. 128 section 3(2)'s proviso puts two things outside the protection registration gives: a genuine lease at a full rent running for 3 years or less, and a regulated tenancy. *The provision is quoted in section 3 of Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks and is not requoted here.* A short lease can bind a purchaser without appearing on any search.

Four unrelated routes to one conclusion: a clean land search is not a clean property. A discretionary power to register; a regulator saying registration is not required by the Ordinance while stating that its own practice is to register; a subsection allowing the order to be registered against adjoining land; and a proviso taking short leases outside the protection.

4. Why the cost follows the property — and why that is deliberate

It is not a drafting gap. It is what the amendment was for.

The default first. Section 24(4):

In plain terms: where the Building Authority does the work itself, the cost is recoverable from the person the order was served on — normally the owner at the time, that is, the vendor.

Then the exception, and its switch is registration. Section 24(4A) provides that once the order has been registered under section 24(2C), the same cost is recoverable instead from whoever owns the land or premises on the day that demolition or alteration is finished. *That provision is quoted in section 10 of Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks and is not requoted here.*

Read the two together and the mechanism appears: registration is what makes the liability run with the land. Unregistered, it follows the person. Registered, it follows the property.

And how "the date of completion" is proved is in the same section. Section 24(4C):

In one sentence: section 24(4A) pins the liability to a date, and section 24(4C) is how that date is established — a certificate purporting to be under the hand of the Building Authority is prima facie evidence of it.

One more subsection narrows section 24's own reach. Section 24(1A):

So minor works commenced under the simplified requirements are outside section 24(1) — which is not the same as being outside an order.

Section 24AA exists for exactly those works. Section 24AA(1) lets the Building Authority order the demolition or alteration of minor works commenced under the simplified requirements; section 24AA(5) requires the order to be served on the owner of adjoining land where the place the works are on is connected to it and is occupied or used by that owner or occupier; section 24AA(6) lets the Building Authority cause the order to be registered in the Land Registry — "may" again; section 24AA(9) provides that once the order is registered under section 24AA(6) the cost of demolition or alteration is recoverable instead from the person who, as at the date of completion of the demolition or alteration, is the owner; and section 24AA(10) makes a certificate under the hand of the Building Authority stating that date prima facie evidence of it. The whole mechanism sections 3 and 4 describe — the order, service next door, discretionary registration, cost following the land, the certificate — runs a second time in section 24AA. Section 24(1A) narrows the reach of section 24; it does not narrow the buyer's exposure.

And each of the three sections carries a final subsection handing the whole mechanism to another Ordinance. Section 24(6):

Section 24AA(11) makes the same provision for section 24AA(1), and section 24C(7) for section 24C(1). And what section 72 of the Basic Housing Units Ordinance (Cap. 658) is about is subdivided units — 劏房, the other half of this subject.

Cap. 658 section 72 (consolidated 1 March 2026), headed "Effect of Buildings Ordinance modified":

Three limits travel with it and belong together. Section 72(2) specifies the two circumstances: a basic-housing-unit recognition in force for the subdivided unit, or a basic-housing-unit (recognition) application made and not yet settled. Section 72(3) provides that the second is to be disregarded where, before that application was made, an order or notice had already been served or issued under section 24(1), 24AA(1) or 24C(1) and had not been complied with or withdrawn. Section 72(4) provides that subsection (1) does not apply where the Building Authority is satisfied that its operation would pose an imminent danger or risk to life or property and says so when making the order or issuing the notice. So it is a conditional suspension that can be displaced, not a permanent exemption; it operates on the application of sections 24(1), 24AA(1) and 24C(1), it never mentions the Land Registry, and it removes nothing already registered.

And the buyer paying was not an oversight. It was the stated reason. The paper on the Buildings (Amendment) Bill 2003 put to the Legislative Council proposed section 24(2C) and section 24(4A) in consecutive paragraphs: one records that securing compliance with an order had been delayed where ownership changed, because a fresh order had to be served on the new owner; the next describes the registration as a measure of consumer protection for prospective property buyers, who would become aware of unauthorised building works through a land search.

So the buyer bearing the cost is the mechanism working — it stops a sale from resetting the enforcement clock. And the reason given at the time was that the buyer would find out, which is exactly what section 3 is about.

The other side of the same debate is on the record too. The Bills Committee report records the Law Society of Hong Kong's concern that registering warning notices could affect conveyancing practice, because such a notice can be treated as an encumbrance on title and used by purchasers as an excuse to back out of otherwise binding transactions. That is advocacy before a committee, not law.

⚠ Two limits:

• Section 24(4A) allocates the cost of the Building Authority's own works under section 24(3). It is not a general rule that a registered order transfers every liability to the buyer.
• Cap. 123 section 33(9) provides a second cost route: a memorial of a cost certificate may be registered in the Land Registry against the title of the premises or land, and on registration the cost constitutes a first charge.

5. The vendor demolishing it does not clear the register

Curing the works and clearing the register are two steps, and the Ordinance writes a route for only one of them.

Section 24C(6) uses "may" again. Once the works have been taken down or altered in the way the notice required, the Building Authority may lodge an instrument of satisfaction against that notice at the Land Registry — may, not shall. *The provision is quoted in section 10 of Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks and is not requoted here.*

One Ordinance, three sections, and more than one modal verb: a warning notice going onto the register is shall (subject to the date condition in section 3 above); a section 24 order going onto it is may; and a section 24AA order going onto it under section 24AA(6) is may too. Coming off it — section 24C(6) writes a route for the notice only, and that is may as well. (Sections 24(2C), 24(4A) and 24C were added or amended by 15 of 2004; section 24AA was added by 20 of 2008.)

For an order, the Ordinance writes no route off the register at all. The instrument of satisfaction is found only in section 24C(6). The Buildings Ordinance contains no provision for removing, cancelling or discharging the registration of an order under section 24 or section 24AA.

*The Ordinance has one other satisfaction instrument: section 33(10) requires — shall — the Building Authority to lodge an appropriate "memorial of satisfaction" against a memorial it has itself registered under section 33(9), and that memorial is of a cost certificate, not of an order. So: the notice has a discretionary way off; a cost memorial has a mandatory way off; an order has none.*

⚠ And that point is about the Ordinance, not about the register. The Buildings Department's own FAQ states that under current practice it sends both the order and the record of its compliance to the Land Registry to be registered (the Chinese version of the same answer says the entry is taken off once the order has been complied with), and the Estate Agents Authority's 2010 circular says that where an order has been complied with, a letter confirming compliance is usually registered as well. So "the Ordinance writes no route off the register for an order" and "a search will always show an uncleared order" are not the same sentence. The Ordinance is one thing; administrative practice is another, and a practice is not a statutory right — no provision requires it to continue. Five things have to be kept apart: whether the works were done (compliance); whether a notice was withdrawn; whether an instrument of satisfaction was lodged against a warning notice; whether a memorial of satisfaction was lodged against a cost memorial; and whether an entry, once made, remains visible on a full historical search.

In one sentence: the vendor controls the works, the Building Authority controls the register, and the buyer's search shows the second, not the first. So on seeing a section 24C notice the question is not has it been taken down but has an instrument of satisfaction been lodged.

⚠ The Buildings Ordinance carries an appeal deadline, and it is fixed at 21 days on the face of the Ordinance. Section 47:

Chinese text:

Two things to note: First, the 21 days run from the date notification of the decision is sent, not from the date it is received. Second, the notice of appeal must be received by the Secretary to the Appeal Tribunal within the 21 days — posting it is not enough. The section confers on nobody a power to extend those 21 days, by Gazette notice or otherwise, so it is a number of days written into the Ordinance — which is not the same kind of deadline as the compliance period under section 24(1), which the Building Authority sets case by case in the order itself.

And giving the notice of appeal suspends enforcement. Section 44(2):

Chinese text:

Section 44(1) gives the right to a person aggrieved by a decision made by the Building Authority in the exercise of a discretion — ordinarily the owner at the time. Where a purchaser on an uncompleted sale stands in relation to that route is a question that has to be read with your own agreement. Sections 44(3) and (4) carry an emergency exception.

6. A stigmatised flat and an unauthorised structure go through different doors

Newspapers run them together. In law they are two different doors.

「凶宅」 is not a legal term, and the Ordinances do not directly answer the question.

The statutory position is set out in another guide. In short: no statute sets up a seller's duty to disclose a past incident, and the answer goes back to what the agreement itself says and to general legal principles. *See Buying Property in Hong Kong: What the Solicitor Does.*

Where the difference lies: the door. An unauthorised structure is capable of being a question about title — the Estate Agents Authority's own circular says so (section 3). A flat with a history goes to a different door, and there is more than one route on that side, each running between different people: one runs against the agent, over what a buyer was or was not told; and where the vendor has made a misrepresentation, the Misrepresentation Ordinance (Cap. 284) has rules of its own, set out below.

And Second Schedule Part A clause 6(5) applies the Misrepresentation Ordinance (Cap. 284) to the agreement. The sections of that Ordinance used here are 2, 3 and 4. Section 2 removes two bars that would otherwise stand in the way of rescission. Section 3(1):

Chinese text:

Section 4:

Chinese text:

Together they say two things. First, a misrepresentation that was not made fraudulently can still carry liability in damages, unless the person who made it proves that he had reasonable grounds to believe, and did believe up to the time the contract was made, that the facts represented were true. Second, a term in a contract excluding or restricting liability for misrepresentation is not effective merely because it is written — it is of no effect except so far as it satisfies the requirement of reasonableness stated in section 3(1) of the Control of Exemption Clauses Ordinance (Cap. 71), and the person claiming that it does must show it.

⚠ Whether anything said was a misrepresentation, who made it to whom, whether an agent had authority to make it for the vendor, and how these provisions work in any particular transaction are questions of fact and of judge-made law.

7. Why a Hong Kong buyer still traces fifteen years of deeds

Fifteen years is not a backward number. It is what a jurisdiction without a title register has to do.

Hong Kong has a Land Titles Ordinance, and it has never commenced. Cap. 585 section 1:

Two things. First, the section's own heading reads "(Not yet in operation)". Second, commencement is not a date but a power — a day to be appointed by the Secretary for Development by notice published in the Gazette. So there is no fixed commencement date.

⚠ Something has changed on paper since 2004, and it is not yet in force. The Registration of Titles and Land (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2025 (Ordinance 40 of 2025) was gazetted on 3 October 2025. It had not commenced as at the last updated date, and the power in Cap. 585 section 1(2) is unchanged: a day appointed by the Secretary for Development by notice published in the Gazette. So read this section in two registers: Hong Kong still runs Cap. 128's registration of instruments, and that is current law; Ordinance 40 of 2025 is enacted but not yet in force.

The Government has said something about its scope. In the Law Reform Commission's implementation register (<https://www.hkreform.gov.hk/en/implementation/index.htm>), the Development Bureau records that the Bill the Government introduced into the Legislative Council in February 2025 brings land granted by the Government after commencement into title registration ahead of all other land; that it was passed on 25 September 2025; and that it is described on that page as expected to come into effect in the first half of 2027. Two points to note. First, "expected to" is not an appointed commencement date, and the power in Cap. 585 section 1(2) is unchanged: a day appointed by the Secretary for Development by notice published in the Gazette. Second, because newly granted land comes first, a reader buying a second-hand flat is not reached by title registration on this timetable — the land under it was granted decades ago, it stays in Cap. 128's registration of instruments, and how it would ever move across is a matter for later legislation.

The Land Registry has since published an aim of its own. Its title-registration FAQ answers the question "When will the title registration system be implemented?" as follows:

An aim is not an appointed day: Cap. 585 section 1(2) is unchanged, and commencement remains a day appointed by the Secretary for Development by notice published in the Gazette. So there is still no fixed commencement date. The aim is expressly for new land only, so a reader buying a second-hand flat is not reached by it.

The same page also says work on the subsidiary legislation is under way, and gives a target for tabling it:

⚠ The content of that subsidiary legislation has not been published.

So the fifteen-year trace is not backwardness; it is what the system requires. Hong Kong still registers instruments under Cap. 128, with priority by date of registration, while Cap. 585 has not commenced since 2004. Cap. 219 section 13(1)'s fifteen years is what a deeds jurisdiction has to do to make a transaction possible at all. Those provisions are quoted in sections 1 and 3 of Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks and are not requoted here.

The Law Reform Commission put the same point in a single paragraph in 2014. Three points: Cap. 585 remains some way from operation, so the territory still runs no register of title; the period a vendor must prove is not less than fifteen years and must open on a sound root; and Cap. 128's registration of instruments, while it makes title traceable, neither confers title nor stands behind it.

And the fact that the entitlement can be varied by contract is how the whole of Cap. 219 works, not a feature of the title sections. The opening formula "Unless the contrary intention is expressed" runs through a number of its sections, including 13(1), 13A(1), 16(1), 17, 35(1D), 44(6), 51(1) and 62(5). So section 13's fifteen years is a default, not a floor.

England's period is also fifteen years, reached by a different route and ending somewhere else.

The period went from forty years to thirty by section 44(1) of the Law of Property Act 1925:

and from thirty to fifteen by section 23 of the Law of Property Act 1969:

Note how the 1969 section describes its own subject: "a contract expressing no contrary intention". The English section says the same thing expressly at subsection (11):

So Cap. 219 section 13(1)'s opening words are inherited, not a local peculiarity.

But England then did something Hong Kong cannot. The Land Registration Act 2002 inserted subsection (12):

In plain terms: England took registered land out of the rule entirely. So Hong Kong's fifteen years is doing work England's fifteen years has largely stopped doing — because England registers title and Hong Kong, under Cap. 585, still does not.

And on the question this reader actually has, England has a provision Hong Kong has no counterpart to. Section 49(1) of the Law of Property Act 1925 — the vendor-and-purchaser application — shares its words of exclusion with Cap. 219 section 12(1). But the English section has a second subsection:

In one sentence: in England, where the court refuses specific performance, or in any action for the return of a deposit, it may order the deposit repaid. ⚠ Cap. 219 contains no equivalent express power for a court to order a deposit repaid. That does not mean a Hong Kong court has no other route to order repayment.

And on one more, the two jurisdictions arrived at the same place from opposite directions. Hong Kong's Law Reform Commission recommended a Vendor's Information Form for the second-hand residential market in 2002. The Government's implementation register places the project in the category of partial implementation; on the second-hand half, all the register offers is a requirement that agents provide saleable-area information.

England legislated one, then repealed it. Housing Act 2004 section 163(5) listed what a home information pack's regulations could require:

Note the order of limbs (b), (c) and (d): the title, anything about the property held in a statutory register, and the physical condition. Those are precisely the three things a Hong Kong buyer has to go and find. And the Part's own amendment credit records how it ended:

So: Hong Kong considered a seller's disclosure document for exactly this transaction and never legislated it; England legislated one covering exactly those three heads and repealed it seven years later. Two opposite routes to the same position.

On the last point the two agree. Cap. 219 Second Schedule Part A clause 4(1)(b) takes outside the vendor's warranty anything the purchaser could have ascertained on reasonable inspection of the property (section 1). The Land Registration Act 2002's Schedule 3 applies the same test to easements:

Two jurisdictions with opposite registration systems, drafted seventy-seven years apart, put the same question — would a look at the property have shown it — in the same place. And for this reader, a structure on a roof or an enclosed balcony is exactly the kind of thing a look at the property shows — the structure, that is, and not its status. An inspection shows the feature. Whether it matches the approved plans, whether it was ever authorised, whether it breaches the Government lease or the deed of mutual covenant, and whether the Buildings Department will act on it are not things a look at the property can show. Clause 4(1)(b)'s exception turns on what a reasonable inspection would have revealed, so moving from the physical thing to its legal status is a step, not a restatement.

⚠ The other half: the same English Schedule deals separately with short leases:

That paragraph is unqualified and can be read beside Cap. 128 section 3(2)'s three years. But the same Schedule's actual-occupation paragraph carries four exceptions, one of which takes out an interest whose occupation "would not have been obvious on a reasonably careful inspection" and of which the buyer has no actual knowledge. So the two systems cannot simply be compared.

8. Why the answer is in your own documents

Whether you can refuse title depends on your agreement and your title deeds — and it is the law itself that makes them decisive.

One. No Ordinance prescribes what your document must say — but one does require it to be written. Every Second Schedule Part A clause above binds only if the agreement incorporates it by reference under section 36, and there is no statutory prescribed form of provisional agreement for sale and purchase at all. What Cap. 219 does require is writing. Section 3(1):

So: no prescribed form, but a writing signed by the party to be charged is a precondition to bringing an action on a land contract. What your own paper does needs a solicitor to read it.

Two. Requisitions have a deadline, and raising one is not a free move. Clause 7(1)'s long-stop is not later than 14 days prior to the date of completion — not a period running from discovery, but a fixed date working backwards from a completion date you already have. The later the discovery, the shorter the window; a discovery inside the last fortnight leaves none. And clause 7(2) puts the next move in the vendor's hands — but the clause draws its own boundary round that right, and the boundary has to be read with it: it is triggered where the purchaser makes and insists on an objection or requisition which the vendor "shall be unable or (on the grounds of difficulty, delay or expense or on any other reasonable ground) unwilling to remove or comply with"; and the clause carries a third limb — "or if the title of the vendor shall be defective". So the unwillingness is not a bare change of mind: the parenthesis is the clause's own statement of the grounds that count. Once it is triggered, the deposit goes back with no costs and no compensation attached. *Both clauses are quoted in full, and this exact question answered, in Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks.*

⚠ But that deadline is not absolute; one judgment is relevant. In CACV 79/2009 (section 1) the Court of Appeal recorded as common ground, at ¶20, that "a purchaser is entitled to raise requisitions out of time if they go to the root of title and the defect in the defendant’s title could not have been discovered had the purchaser used due diligence", and on those facts a requisition raised on the day of an inspection, after the contractual period had run, was allowed. Two limits belong with that. It is the position recorded in one case as common ground between the parties, not a general rule for every contract — the contractual clause in that case was clause 12 of that agreement, not clause 7 of the form set out here. And it decides no reader's case: whether you are out of time depends on your own agreement and facts.

Three. Getting it wrong is not capped at the deposit. Clause 10 does four things at once: the deposit is forfeited outright, and as liquidated damages rather than as a penalty; the vendor may rescind and either keep the property or resell it; if the resale comes in lower, the shortfall and the costs of the resale are the purchaser's to pay; and if it comes in higher, the increase is the vendor's. *Clause 10 is quoted in full in Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks.*

Four. There is a route into court on a title question, and what it excludes is narrower than it looks. Cap. 219 section 12(1) lets a vendor or purchaser of land apply by petition or by originating summons to the court "in respect of any question arising out of or connected with any contract for the sale or exchange of land". The parenthesis that follows takes out two things and names both: "a question affecting the existence or validity of the contract", and a question "relating to compensation payable by the Government or a public body". Whether requisitions have been answered, whether good title has been shown, and whether a party may refuse to complete are questions arising out of or connected with the contract — the parenthesis does not remove them. What the section cannot do is decide any of that away from the papers: it is an application to the court, made by a party who has the agreement and the title deeds in front of it. Section 12A is narrower still: it runs only where the encumbrancer is out of the jurisdiction, cannot be found, is unknown or is uncertain, and it is about paying money into court. *Both sections are quoted in full in Conveyancing in Hong Kong: Mortgage and Title Checks.*

Five. Where the line between a defect in title and a defect in the property runs, and how deep it is cut, is judge-made law. *On this subject see two Hong Kong judgments — Spark Rich, CACV 249/1998, and Lucky Dragon Corporation Ltd v Speedy Vantage Ltd, CACV 79/2009, both on the unauthorised-structure segment of that line and set out in section 1. The Ordinance shows the structure, but not how to weigh the risk in any particular case.*