Chang Min Tat FJ (delivering the judgment of the Court):

Chia Ah Kow alias Chia Siew Seng, the fourth-named appellant, is one of twenty-three purchasers in a housing-estate who are all dissatisfied with the adjudication of the Collector of Stamp Duties on the amounts of stamp duties to be paid on the transfers to them of the lands and houses built on them. In his case, the record of appeal gives the agreement of purchase, the transfer and the adjudication. The facts in the other cases vary somewhat from his and from one another, but only as to the details of the purchases. The question to be decided is a question of law which is common to all of them. It was and is sufficient merely to refer to the facts in the case of Chia Ah Kow. It would have been sufficient consequently if the appeal record was to consist of documents relating to his case only.

On 30 October 1971 Chia Ah Kow executed an agreement for the purchase of a plot of land, of not less than 1,600 square feet, on which a two-storeyed shop-house was to be erected by the developers, for the inclusive price of $49,000. On 4 July 1973, a transfer of the property agreed to be purchased into the name of Chia Ah Kow was presented at the Land Office for registration. The stated consideration was, naturally, the agreed price of $49,000. Between these two dates, the house was erected to the specifications contained in the agreement of purchase. That is an accepted fact. It is also a fact of sufficient notoriety to be duly taken notice of by the Court that between these two dates, properties had appreciated considerably in this country. It is a fact adverted to by Counsel for the appellant in his written submission.

There was and is not the slightest suspicion anywhere that the sum of $49,000 was not actually paid to the developers by the purchaser. But in the circumstances, the Collector of Stamp Duties (the respondent in the appeal), in an adjudication exercise laid before him by the purchaser's solicitors, set a figure of $65,000 as being, in his view, the market value of the property. He therefore assessed the stamp duty to be paid on this valuation. The difference in the stamp duty levied and what the purchaser, as advised, thought he should pay was only $160. But, the cumulative effect of the 23 cases was, however, sufficient to take the matter up to the High Court on appeal from the decision of the respondent and to this Court.

Both the Collector of Stamp Duties and the High Court dealt with the question, with respect, correctly, as essentially a matter of the interpretation of s. 12A of the Stamp Ordinance 1949 as amended by Act 60 of 1967. This particular section reads as follows:

12A. For the purpose of assessing the value of any property which is the subject of a transfer or settlement, such value shall be taken to be:

(a) the money value, if any, mentioned in the instrument of transfer as the consideration for the transfer or settlement; or

(b)the market value, as on the date of execution, of the property transferred or settled,

whichever be the greater:

Provided that the officer before whom the instrument of transfer is tendered for registration may accept the consideration mentioned therein as being the market value, unless he shall have reason to believe otherwise.

Both of them came to the conclusion on the interpretation of this section that the market value being greater should prevail over the agreed consideration or money-value, as the proper figure for the assessment of the stamp duty to be paid on the instrument of transfer.

Both also held that the date for the determination of the market value was the date of the execution of the transfer. The appellant, however, contended and still contends that the date should be the date of the agreement.

The appellant had a further and somewhat novel contention that stamp duty should only be imposed on the value of land, without taking into consideration the value of the house erected on it. The Hi