THE EVER MORE DEMANDING TASK OF
THE CONVEYANCING SOLICITOR
Michael Wilkinson
Professor and Head, Department of Professional Legal Education,
University of Hong Kong
Introduction
Few would contest the view that the work of a conveyancing solicitor is
becoming ever more demanding; and this in a period when the non-
enforceability of scale fees and the parlous state of the economy and
especially the property market has led to the relegation of conveyancing
solicitors from being the income-generating stars of most firms' premier
division to somewhere struggling in the basement division. Whether the
imminent enactment of the Land Titles Ordinance will improve our
common lot remains to be seen.
This paper seeks to identify and comment upon several case law
developments which have made the conveyancing solicitor's work more
demanding. They all affect the task of the solicitor representing the
vendor.
The scope of the vendor's duty to show title has been significantly
extended by the courts in construing s 13 of the Conveyancing and
Property Ordinance
S 13 of the Conveyancing and Property Ordinance delineates the
vendor's duty in proving title. It begins:
Unless the contrary intention is expressed, a purchaser of land shall
be entitled to require from the vendor, as proof of title to that land,
only production ....
From the use of the word 'only' it would seem to follow that this
section provides a complete codification of the vendor's duty by way of
proving title. As will be seen, this is in fact far from the case. So far as I
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Law Lectures for Practitioners 1999
am aware, the word 'only' in this section has never been considered or
given any effect by the courts.
The first two subsections provide:
13(1) Unless the contrary intention is expressed, a purchaser of
land shall be entitled to require from the vendor, as proof of
title to that land, only production of the Government lease1
relating to the land sold and —
(a) proof of title to that land
(i) where the grant of the Government lease was less
than 15 years befor