In Xu Xiaoqi v Tsui Yuet Lai Teresa ([2013] HKEC 636, CFI) D agreed to sell a property to P. The agreement required D to show and give good title in accordance with sections 13 and 13A of the Conveyancing and Property Ordinance. One of the assignments forming part of the title had been executed by one tenant in common on behalf of the other under the terms of a Power of Attorney. The sellers were only able to produce a certified copy of the power. D’s solicitors argued that there was no real risk that an adverse interest could have been created as a result of the loss of the original. Nevertheless, on the day before completion they sent P’s solicitors a draft of a statutory declaration that the solicitors who had acted in relation to the power of attorney were prepared to give. P’s solicitors said that they would need time to consider it. D’s solicitors would not undertake to deliver the sworn declaration on completion since the solicitor who was to make the declaration would not give such an undertaking. Completion did not take place and D purported to rescind.
The court held that D had failed in his duty. The power of attorney was a document of title and section 13(1) obliged him to deliver the original to P.
D sought to invoke ‘the MEPC principle’ :
‘In other words, notwithstanding the law that it is a purchaser’s proprietary right to have all the originals of all the title documents (see Yiu Ping Fong, p 798H), in circumstances where there is no reasonable doubt that the missing original document would not affect the title to the property the vendor may be relieved of the obligation to produce it upon completion’. ([28] Anthony Chan J)
The principle can only be invoked, however, where the seller has made all reasonable efforts to produce the original or adequately explain its loss or destruction ([30]). D had not lived up to this responsibility. His solicitors had only produced a draft statutory declaration on the eve of completion having refused to acknowledge the validity of the requisition up to that point nor to explain the loss. There was no undertaking to produce the sworn statutory declaration on completion and P’s solicitors had not been given adequate time to consider it ([31]).
Michael Lower
