1. Tang was the registered owner of a property developed under a government housing scheme for civil servants (“Property”). Under the legal assignment by which Tang purchased the Property, there was a non-alienation clause, which prohibited Tang from assigning or charging the Property without the consent of the Financial Secretary Incorporated (“FSI”). Such consent would usually be granted upon payment of a premium. To secure the performance of the non-alienation clause, a legal charge in favour of FSI was created. 2. In 2014, Tang took a loan of $2.2 million from the Appellant. To comply with the non-alienation clause, Tang assigned the balance of all future sale proceeds of the Property receivable by himself as security for the repayment of the loan. The loan agreement was registered in the Land Registry. 3. Subsequently, Tang took another loan of $1 million from the Respondent. In 2015, Tang defaulted in the repayment of the loan. After obtaining judgment on the debt, the Respondent also obtained charging orders nisi and absolute against the Property. An order for sale of the Property in enforcement of the charging order was later made and the Property was agreed to be sold to a purchaser. Both the charging orders and the order for sale were registered in the Land Registry. 4. The Court of First Instance held that (a) as the assignment of sale proceeds to the Appellant did not create any interest in or otherwise affect the Property, the Appellant’s loan agreement was not registrable and had to be vacated in the Land Registry; (b) as the charging order obtained by the Respondent was a charge on Tang’s beneficial interest in the Property itself, the Respondent’s interest had priority over any unregistrable interest that the Appellant had in any future sale proceeds. 5. The Appellant only appealed against the decision on the issue of priority, but not the decision to vacate the registration of the Appellant’s loan agreement. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on the ground that the Appellant's interest was in a different class from that of the Respondent. On appeal, the only issue before this Court was the priority to the sale proceeds of the Property between the Appellant and the Respondent. 6. The Court held that pursuant to section 20B(3) of the High Court Ordinance (Cap 4), a charging order shall have the like effect of an equitable charge created by the debtor by writing. An equitable charge confers on the chargee a right to have the charged property made available by a court order. Therefore, a charging order or an equitable charge gives the chargee a proprietary interest in the property. It affects the land itself and is an encumbrance on the property. This is so despite that (a) the charge does not involve any transfer of legal or equitable ownership, (b) the interest in the charged property is inchoate and ineffectual until a court order is made. 7. On the other hand, the equitable assignment of the sale proceeds did not give the Appellant any proprietary interest in the Property itself at all, and did not constitute an encumbrance on the Property. The charge over the Property created by the charging order in favour of the Respondent was therefore not subject to the earlier assignment of the future sale proceeds. The Appellant’s entitlement to the sale proceeds was only derived from Tang’s entitlement to the surplus of the sale proceeds, if any, upon the sale of the Property. 8. The Court therefore held that the Respondent ranks prior to the Appellant in relation to the sale proceeds. DISPOSITION 9. Accordingly, the Court unanimously dismissed the appeal.