FAIR RENTS ACT

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 270, 13 August 1942, Page 7

FAIR RENTS ACT

£3 A Week Houses Judged

Excluded

That a rent of £3 a week is, by one day’s rent in an ordinary year, and' two days in a leap year, greater than a rent of £15(5 a year, was the basis of a Judgment delivered by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday. On this judgment turned whether or not a house rented at £3 a week was subject to the Fair Kents Ael, 1930, in which there is a clause providing Unit nothing in the Act should apply with respect to.any dwelling-house that’was let as a dwelling-house ou the passing of the Act at a rent exceeding £l5O a year. The case was one in whicn A. Kellawny, insurance company manager, Auckland, claimed £ll9/5/- from J. King, painter and paperhanger, Wellington. as arrears of rent on a house which Kellaway bad let to King. Mr. C. M. Turner, for Kellaway, said llmt the house bad been let for £3 a week at the passing of the Fair Rents Act. and hiler had been let tu King for £4/15/- a week. Claiming that the house came within the meaning of the Act. Mr. T. I’. Cleary, for King, said King was not. liound to pay more than £3 a week rent. It was common ground that he had been paying £3 a week regularly. After stating that an ' ordinary calendar year was 52 weeks and one day, his Honour iu his judgment said that if the Legislature intended lhe word "year” in the statute Io have any other signification than its ordinary primary meaning, it could easily have made that meaning plain by specially defining the word in the interpretation clause.