RENTS AND VALUATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 145, 21 June 1934, Page 6

RENTS AND VALUATIONS.

The Eating Act defines the. annual value of a property as the rent at which it would let from year to year, less 20 per cent. One. would imagine that the best evidence of what a property would let for is the rent which it is actually yielding. Strangely enough, the Mount Eden Assessment Court declined to accept the existing rent as evidence or as sufficient evidence to outweigh the valuers' opinion as to what the property would let for. One would expect that the typical valuation would, ill terms of the Act, be the present rental less 20 per cent. It would, however, be difficult to find a single instance where the Court has so fixed the value. On the contrary, in numerous cases, despite evidence that the rentals actually obtained were the best obtainable, the Court fixed the value at a figure much in excess of the actual rent, and apparently ignored the provision for a deduction of 20 per cent. One cannot escape the conclusion that the Court believed that Mount Eden property owners are making a habit of letting their properties at about two-thirds of the true rental. It is obvious that the whole system of valuations, objections and assessment courts requires revision, or that a right of appeal to the Supreme Court should be allowed, if the fault is not in the system but in its administration. I am not a disgruntled objector, for I was fortunate in securing a solid reduction; but in waiting my turn I could not but feel that many objectors suffered from the Court's ruling as to the weight it attached to the evidence of existing rents. SOLICITOR.