POWER OF SALE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 201, 26 August 1930, Page 5

POWER OF SALE.

LOCAL AUTHORITY RjGHTS.

RECOVERY OP OVERDUE RATES

MORTGAGES HELD BY CROWN.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

NEW PLYMOUTH, Monday.

The important point as to "whether a local rating authority can exercise its power of sale for the recovery of overdue rates of land over which the! Crown holds a mortgage, formed the subject of a judgment which was given to-day by Mr. Justice Blair.

Tlie parties to the hearing were tha Crown and. the Inglewood Borough Council. Tho facts were that Marshall, a discharged soldier, purchased a farm property within the borough of Inglewood, of which he became registered owner in April, 1920. The farm was valued for rating purposes at £1450. There was a mortgage from Marshall to the Crown. The amount of unpaid rates from 1925 to 1928 was £191. In 1928 the borough obtained judgment against Marshall for £202. Marshall had abandoned the property in December, 1927, and after the Crown had made unsuccessful efforts to sell the property it let the grazing rights.

"In my opinion," said Ms Honor, "if the Crown takes a mortgage on a pro* perty it cannot acquire from the mortgagor a better title than he has to give. A mortgage, if taken from a person of corporation not exempt from rates, is a mortgage on 'ratable property' and such mortgage is necessarily taken, subject to all the burdens that lie upon ratable property. "But persdnal liability imposed upon mortgagees by section CO does not affect the Crown, because the Crown is not specially named. There is no inconsistency in treating the Crown's prerogative as still applicable to the statutory provision imposing personal liability, while holding that the property itself is subject to the statutory charges imposed on an owner of property." Other matters were also discussed, but the real issue is answered in the above way, and means that the local rating authority has a right to exercise it's powers of sale for recovery of unpaid rates.