This thesis proposes the following arguments: Property law was used in British Hong Kong as a political tool to achieve a desired degree of coloniality or decoloniality in years before its reversion to communist China in 1997. Provision of land improvement opportunities in inter-war Repulse Bay in the 1920s promoted a trial set of values for the Chinese landed gentry such as the British would wish to see exhibited in a decolonized Hong Kong. These included equal availability of commercial opportunity to Chinese and British, abstinence from speculative practices regarding land and aloofness from mainland Chinese political causes. The racial balance of interwar land law in text and practice was the result of the liberality and cultural hybridity of its architect, Mr Philip Jacks. Hong Kong's future ability to function as an independent territorial entity can be thought to have rested on his racially balanced and politically neutral standards.

Within the equitable doctrine of rectification, a distinction between common or mutual mistake and unilateral mistake is currently adopted by courts, litigants and scholars. Based on this distinction the focus of a court is to identify who made a mistake and who had knowledge of any mistake. This approach is unhelpful and has led to unnecessary complexity which has been identified by judges and scholars in several recent cases in England and Australia. In addition, the boundary between common law construction and the equitable doctrine of rectification has become less clear. To address the complexity of the law and the uncertain boundary between construction and rectification this thesis examines the scope of the common law approach to construction, identifies the current law relating to when rectification will be granted, outlines in what ways is it difficult to reconcile the current case law, and explains where the law of rectification went wrong. After addressing those matters the thesis explains how the case law on the equitable doctrine of rectification needs to be restated, in accordance with principles established in earlier case law, so that the law is coherent and principled. This provides a comprehensive solution to the uncertainty and complexity in the law of rectification. The solution includes arguing that the distinction between common or mutual mistake and unilateral mistake should be rejected and that the correct distinction is between two different types of mistakes: mistakes made in the recording of agreements and mistakes made during the formation of agreements. In addition, courts in recent decades have focused on the intention of the parties rather than on agreements made by contracting parties. It is argued that a focus on the type of mistake made, and a focus on agreements rather than intentions, will remove the current complexity and uncertainty in the law of rectification that has emerged in recent cases.