ASSESSMENT FOR RATES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 3

ASSESSMENT FOR RATES

STATE RENTAL HOUSES (P.A.) DUNEDIN, Monday. The question of whether an assessment for rates should be on the basis of a fair annual rental or the rental actually received by the owner was discussed at a sitting of the Assessment Court to-day. The State Advances Corporation objected to an increase of assessment for 1944-45 from X 56 to £60 in connection with a three-roomed house.

Mr. A. E. Dawson, branch manager of the corporation, said that the decision would apply to 90 State houses in Dunedin whose assessments had been increased. In connection with the house which was being used as a test case, Mr. Dawson said the corporation received £1 6/3 a week rent and the city valuer had based the assessment on £1 8/G a week. Mr. J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., who presided, said that the Rating Act implied that the assessment was to be on a fair annual rental and he considered that the city valuer had arrived at such a basis. The assessment must, therefore, be sustained. Mr. Bartholomew added that the fact that the corporation would be paying rates on the basis of an hypothetical rental which was in excess of the actual rental did not enter into the interpretation of the Act, which was the responsibility of the Court. Objections with regard to the other 89 houses concerned were struck out.