TENANCY ACT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27111, 6 August 1953, Page 10

TENANCY ACT

COMMITTEE FAVOURS AMENDMENT

RECOMMENDATIONS TO CONFERENCE (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 5. The finance committee of the housing conference decided today that the Tenancy Act should be amended so that more houses or flats would become available for letting. The Real Estate Institute suggested to the conference that the act should be amended so as not to apply to newly-erected properties, or properties that had not previously been let. Mr D. H. Cavers, a delegate from the institute. said the proposal would create anomalies, but it would create new tenancies, for which there was a tremendous demand. There would always be persons who must rent their -homes; and the community should see that they could do so. ’At present people would not let for fear of the effects of the act. Owners were afraid to subdivide houses into flats for fear of the Tenancy Act, said Mr D. G. Commons (Building Societies’ Association). The chairman, the Minister in charge of the State Advances Corporation (Mr J. R. Marshall) observed that already new tenancies could be exempt from the act with the approval of the Labour Department. The giving of a year’s notice to persons, with high incomes who were living in State houses was suggested by Mr R. C. Cook (Building Societies’ Association). It had been reported, he said, that there were 3000 State tenants earning more than £lOOO a year. Mr Marshall expressed incredulity, and said that no information on the point was available. The committee decided that the letting of new or existing houses that had not previously been let, and the letting of self-contained flats, either n ® w or created by subdividing houses, mould be exempt from the act.