Implications O (House Pacts ‘Not Realised’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32020, 21 June 1969, Page 44

Implications O (House Pacts ‘Not Realised’

<New Zealand Prep A»>ocpHon> , AUCKLAND, June 20. People buying low-cost or group houses often failed to realise the financialimplications of the agreements they were entering into, an Auckland land agent, Mr S. Gillam, said today.

Mr Gillam was commenting on a statement by the treasurer of the Manukau City Council (Mr W. B. Sharkey), that rating arrears in Manu-1 kau were partly due to people buying family homes* with: very little idea of the consequent financial liabilities, par-: ticularly rates. i “The problem usually rises with people who have never i owned a house 'before,” Mr ; Gillam said. i “A man who earns $3O a) week in take-home pay and J whose wife collects a child: allowance of $4.50 might be i living in a flat for $l5 a week, 1 “He has no maintenance, no i rates and no house insurance I to pay. He buys a house and his family benefit suddenly i vanishes. He finds he is only < paying in mortgage two-thirds I

of what he was paying in rent, hut he has no furniture, jbo floor coverings, no curtains and no shrubs. .... -x.-? ** scratch. He also for insurance and -maintenance on the house. Oti-lM.wl this comes a bill for his fatal After 18 months he is-fay mess.” ■ •••••■ Mr Gillam said most -brii agents tried to make sarefafa sis commitments, but . fafay people failed, to rcafitafae implications. ■?-* ’ The money disappeared -in dribs and drabs until suddenly there was - not enough money to pay for the week’s food, he said . It was people who bought group, low-cost and-sometimes old houses who mostly ran into trouble.