FAIR RENTS ACT

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 46, 18 November 1936, Page 12

FAIR RENTS ACT

Numerous Applications For Adjustment WELLINGTON IN LEAD Property-owners’ Attitude; Commended ■ l "The number of applications throughout New Zealand under the provisions of Hie Fair Rents Act is the clearest proof of the necessity for the legislation.” said the Minister of .Labour. Hou. H. T. Armstrong, in an interview yesterday. “Tlie department is exceptionally busy in various centres and officials are doing good work in investigating complaints and bringing about conferences as between landlords aud tenants. "By far the best feature, so far.” continued Mr. Armstrong, "has been the attitude of property-owners generally. The majority have shown willingness to make adjustments and enter into new agreements with tenants wherever circumstances appear to be reasonable. A certain number of applications have required magisterial consideration, but that, was inevitable. Such cases, however, are by no means substantial compared with the high proportion of applications settled satisfactorily by agreement between the principal parties and subsequently approved by the .Labour Department. Wellington Applications. "A detailed enumeration of all the applications for the determination and fixation of a fair rent has not yet been made, the officials of the department having concentrated on the more pressing work of promoting adjustments. It has been reported that approximately 500 cases have already been dealt with by the Labour Department in Auckland. That is true, but busy as the Auckland officials have been during the past three months, the activity in Wellington has been much greater. The exact, number of applications in the Wellington district is not available at the moment, but the total to date is considerably in excess of the Auckland aggregate. This was to be expected in the special circumstances which mark the housing problem in Wellington where rentals always have been higher than in the other main centres of population. Moreover, there is no immediate prospect of a pronounced falling-off in the weekly number of applications. The department in Wellington will be busy for some time yet. Problem hi Dunedin. "Dunedin is just beginning to get the benefit of the Act. 'There, however, difficulty is being experienced owing to the fact that there has been no valuation of property since 1920. Values today are in many instances very different from what they were sixteen years ago. and consequently rental adjustment is a more difficult problem The Labour Department, however, is doing everything possible within the provisions of tlie Act to bring about satisfactory adjustments of rents.” 'The main provision of the new Act is that no increase may be made in. the basic rent as on May 1,1936, except by order of a magistrate determining the fair rent: or by an agreement between the landlord and tenant subsequently approved by an inspector of factories representing the Labour Department. There has been some complaint in Wellington that although rents have not been, raised by landlords in cases where tenants have been in occupation since May 1. last, there has been a tendency to increase rent; to incoming tenants when homes have been vacated. Any suggestion that, a new tenant, must pay a higher rent, if demanded, is not in compliance with the Act. The basic rent stipulated in the Act still governs the rental question even though one tenant leaves a house and another takes over the dwelling.