A RATING POINT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 140, 16 June 1939, Page 5

A RATING POINT

CARETAKERS' QUARTERS

RENT NOT DECIDING FACTOR

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 15. The principle to be adopted in fixing the rateable value of residential quarters occupied by caretakers in large buildings was laid doAvn by Mr. W. R. McKean. S.M., in giving judgment on a point which Avas the subject of a dispute at a meeting of the Auckland City Assessment Court, held on March 30, and over which 112 presided. Before this year rentals for caretakers' quarters Avere fixed by the owners of the buildings, but, under the Court of Arbitration's most recent award for caretakers, it Avas provided that the maximum rental to be charged was 1.5s a week. It was claimed, at a meeting of the Assessment Court, that this rental should be the basis of the rateable value, and application was made to have assessments reduced accordingly. In the course of his judgment, Mr. McKean said that for the purposes of rating assessment the tenant Avas hypothetical, and so, also, was the rent. The rent actually received Avas not a conclusive factor, though it was, in most cases, taken to be the rent' that this hypothetical tenant might reasonably be expected to pay. It had been held, hoAvever. that, for rating purposes, the word "rent" meant something which Avas not conditioned by the legal retions existing between an actual land-1 lord and an actual tenant. Where there Avere conditions affecting or limiting the receipt of rent in the hands of the landlord, those conditions must be disregarded. After quoting a case in which the whole question had been very fully considered, Mr. McKean said the actual point, decided was that the value of the property Avas not limited to the standard rent fixed by the Rent Restriction Act. Realities were frequently disregarded in an attempt to ascertain what a hypothetical tenant might reasonably be expected to pay. The limitation imposed by law on the landlord in the case before him prevented the landlord from making his tenant pay more than a certain sum, but the rateable value of the property was not limited by the maximum amount chargeable under the award. The proposition was made quite clear by the decision to which he had referred. If there Avere no objection on other grounds the A'aluations must be sustained.