WEST COAST LEASES

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 15, 17 January 1918, Page 8

WEST COAST LEASES

QUESTION OF, vAuATIOX.

11l the Supreme Court judgment has, been given by Bench—His Honour the ■ 'Chief Justice (Sir Rolifivt Stout), Mr. Justice Chapman, and Mr. Justice Hosking) in the case of Samuel t Thomas Cox v. the Public Trustee. The csee \ was brought under the DeclLratory Judgments Act, and concerned two leases granted to Cox by the Pu-ilio Trustee under the Wesl . Coaet Settlements Re-" serves Act. The Couri * was asked a number of questions for the, purpose of guiding the valuators' -.m. defining thr: value of the fee simple of the Jiind as one item and the value of existing improve-"' ments. In the. course of a long and exhaustive judgment the' Court-expressed the opinion that in-valuing the fee simple the land with the improvements must be dealt with as a whole. "That value is the capital value" into which the" value " of the improvements (inters .:* .in- indujcriminated part," said the Court. "We ' deduce from this that in valuing ihe improvements for the purposes of those* leases the point of view of ilie melioration they effect upon the laud as land in .vu. absolutely unimproved state nn:st be con-, sidered, and that one element or test of,' their vaiuo may well lie >y|m a. new tenant would give for them if any existing tenant did not renew ; for in that case the new tenant has to pay over Ihe value of the improvements as ascertained by the Arbitrationer's valuation, subject only to a deduction for destruction or drainage. Them is no m«th<vl or process laid down, by the acts which the arbitn-.tiun or values must pursue in determining the value whether of the fee simple ov of the improvements, and it 'appears, to 113 that tho particular method or process adopted is immaterial ac a matter of law provided accurate results are thereby obtained. It would be, unwise to hamper the fret opera-i tion of arbitrators or valuers in the ruling* of fact and, opinion by laying down any- • thing which;is not strictly a rule of law."