CITY VALUATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1937, Page 5

CITY VALUATIONS.

COUNCIL'S POSITION. NO CONTROL EXERCISED. STATEMENT BY MAYOR. Stating that lie wished to correct a reported curx-ent miscouception that the City Council was responsible for making city valuations, the Mayor, Mr. Ernest Davis, said this morning that the council had no control over nor was responsible for the annual valuation of property in Auckland. "In terms of the procedure laid down in the Rating Act, 1920, an annual valuation for Auckland ie made by the city valuer, who is a statutory officer and not subject in this respect to direction from the council," the Mayor said. "When the valuer has compiled his annual valuation list he is required to declare that it is a true and faithful return of all the rateable property in l the district to the best of his knowledge and belief. It would thus be seen that the valuer's duties have been carefully defined by law, and the whole of his valuations must be the result of his own judgment. "The council, or individual members of it, have no jurisdiction whatever in. regard to the making of the valuation list or the fixing of valuations," Mr. Davis added. "Actually, any person who obstructed the valuer in the performance of his duty in connection with the valuation list », according to the Act, liable to a fine not exceeding £10." Before January 15 of each year the city valuer was required by statute to prepare and sign for transmission to the council a valuation list in a form prescribed by statute, showing all rateable property in the area, with the rateable value in each case. Ratepayers had the right to object to the valuations set down in the list for one month after January 15, and the case was heard in the Assessment Court before a stipendiary magistrate. The decision as to whether the valuation was to be sustained or altered lay in the hands of the Court, and the council did not come into the matter at all. After the Court had made its decisions the valuation list wae signed by the judge, and it then became the valuation roll on which rates were assessed.