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Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 302, 21 December 1937, Page 10

HOME FOR TENANT.

OTAHUHU LITIGATION. LANDLORD'S RESPONSIBILITY. The fact that location cannot be taken into account in the (hiding of alternative accommodation for tenants by owners requiring possession" of their own houses was stressed bv Mr. W. K. McKean, S.M., in the Police Court at Otahuhu yesterday when an adjourned case under the Fair Rents Amendment Act was brought forward. The case was one in which George Richard Hampshire (Mr. Duggan) sought ati'-order for possession of a house which he purchased recently at Howick. The application was opposed by the tenant. Mr. Duggan stated that he had perused the-amendments and he submitted that th'e 'Court could dispose of the case by weighing the relative hardship of landlord and tenant. He produced a letter from a land agent offering a four-roomed house at Birkenhead for £1 a week. Mr. Oscar Mcßrine, of the Labour Department, stated that a four-roomed house could not be called a suitable alternative for a man with six children. In agreeing to counsel's suggestion that the case should be adjourned until nex-t Court day. in order to give defendant an opportunity to view the house. Mr. McKean stated that the legislation was passed primarily for the benefit of the tenants, but if a tenant fixed £1 a week rental as his limit, then lie must be prepared to accept the type of accommodation offering at that figure.