LEASE RENEWALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 206, 1 September 1933, Page 3

LEASE RENEWALS.

" UNIMPROVED VALUE" COURT ASKED TO INTERPRET. NATIVE LANDS AFEECTED. Holding that the parties to the original lease, when they used the. words "unimproved value," intended that the unimproved value of the land at the date of the expiration of the original lease ascertained by tlie Valuer-General should be the determining factor in settling the rent to be paid under the new instrument, his Honor Mr. Justice Hei'dman has given judgment in a matter for interpretation brought before him in which Elizabeth Potts; wife of John Potts, farmer, of Cambridge, was the plaintiff and the Waikato Maniapoto District Maori Land Board the defendant. His Honor was asked to interpret a provision in a lease dated July 1, 1012, made between the defendant board and one John C)|.rlcs Potts, which enabled the latter to call for a renewal of the lease or for a new lease at the end of the term. The. plaintiff, who is the assignee of the original lessor, had served upon the board the requisite notice of her desire to obtain a renewal of the lease, but she and the board were at a. loss to decide what was the true meaning and effect of the words "at a rental of five pounds per centum per annum upon the unimproved value of the said lands and hereditaments at the date of the expiration of the term created and on the same terms and conditions as are herein contained save and except this present covenant for renewal." In his judgment his Honor said he did not think it could be questioned that the basis upon which the rent was to no fixed was the unimproved value of the lands at the date upon which the original lease came to an end. There was no justfication for interpreting the words as meaning a valuation made months or weeks before, and which, when the lease came to an end, was still figuring in the records of the Valuation Department as the unimproved value of the land. Taking the words as they stood in the contract, his Honor said they seemed to him to mean literally the unimproved value of the land on the very date upon which the lease terminated, and ho could find nothing in the context to justifiy a departure from that interpretation. On the question of deciding how the rent of the new lease was to be fixed, his Honor said that section 290 of the Native Land Act, 1931, enabled the Maori Land Board to execute new leases in favour of persons who were entitled to claim renewals of leases and the new lease definitely owed its origin to a contract which must have been reviewed under section 223 of the Native Land Act, 1909. A consideration of the legislation generally led to the conclusion that the Legislature evidently intended that for the purpose of determining whether the consideration stated in an instrument affecting native lands was, or was not, adequate, regard should bo had to valuations made by the Valuer-General, and, in the present case, the right to require a renewal of the original lease, or a new lease, was created by an instrument which could only be confirmed after reference to a valuation made under the Valuation of Land Act.