This seminar reviews the evolution of the Small House Policy in Hong Kong’s New Territories from 1899 to 1972 based on the speaker’s forthcoming book “The Unruly New Territories: Small Houses, Ancestral Estates, Illegal Structures and Other Customary Land Practices of Rural Hong Kong” (HKUP, 2019).

After a survey of the pre-1899 situation, the speaker explains how policy and law developed during the twentieth century under the pressures of indigenous demands, cycles of economic recession and expansion, war, population increase and political uncertainty. Understanding the historical background allows a contextual assessment of the current state of affairs, including the impact of Article 40 of the Basic Law of the HKSAR and the recent judgment in Kwok Cheuk Kin v Director of Lands [2019] 2 HKC 538.

About the speaker:

MALCOLM MERRY has been in practice as a barrister in Hong Kong since 1983 in the course of which he has advised and represented clients on the instructions of solicitors in countless cases, mainly relating to land but also in the fields of professional negligence, probate, personal injury, defamation and general commerce.

Malcolm Merry specializes in land matters. From 1981 to 1989, he taught a variety of subjects at the University of Hong Kong including landlord and tenant, conveyancing, mercantile law, practice and procedure and advocacy. In 2006, he rejoined the Faculty of Law at HKU, being appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Professional Legal Education where he teaches principally property courses. In 2011 he became Head of Department. In 2015 he retired from full-time appointment but continues to teach part-time. He is the author of Hong Kong Tenancy Law, now in its 6th edition, and joint author of Building Management in Hong Kong (now in its 3rd edition) and of Halsbury’s Laws of Hong Kong Landlord & Tenant (Vol. 17).

Malcolm Merry was a member of the Bar Council in 2002-2003 and was a member of the Inland Revenue Board of Review, 2002-2008. In 1995 he served as a temporary district judge sitting in the Lands Tribunal.

The Hong Kong Law Society has awarded this seminar 1.5 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points.