TENANCY POINT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 45, 23 February 1942, Page 6

TENANCY POINT

KEEPING OF BOARDERS

IS IT A BUSINESS?

"This case involves a question of considerable importance to probably many thousands of women throughout New Zealand," said Mr. J. Meltzer in the Supreme Court today in appearing on behalf of a soldier's wife to oppose an application for an order for possession of the house in which she lives.

The plaintiff, for whom Mr. -R.. R. Scott appeared, was William James Curtis and the defendant Irene Winifred Devlin. Mr. Justice Ostler reserved his decision.

Counsel agreed upon the facts, and the legal question for decision was whether Mrs. Devlin, who had four boarders in the plaintiff's house which she occupied in Hanson Street, used the house principally for business purposes. • If the house was held to be used principally for business purposes the Fair Rents Act, it was agreed, did not apply to it, and the order would be given for possession.

Mr. Scott said that application had already been made in the Magistrate's Court and refused by the Magistrate. Counsel submitted that the Magistrate's judgment was contradictory within itself and tli at the Magistrate seemed to have been led astray by sympathy for the defendant, whose husband was overseas. IMPORTANT CASE. Mr. Meltzer said that the case was important because it raised the simpl§ proposition of whether the wife of a soldier was entitled to supplement her .allotment and her wife's allowance by taking in a few boarders in order that she might be able to keep a roof above her head and have a home for her husband when he returned from the war. Mrs. Devlin's husband had volunteered and left with the Third Echelon, said counsel. She received £1 Us 6d a week from him and £1 Is allowance. They had no children. The rent of the house was £1 12s 6d, and she had four boarders who paid 30s a week each. For social security purposes it was calculated that the profit on each would be 3s 9d and for income tax purposes, if no accounts were filed, the profit was assumed to be 6s each. Counsel submitted that the house was not used principally for business purposes. Mr. Scott said that when Mr. Devlin volunteered he must have realised that his wife could not keep on with a six-roomed house at £1 12s 6d a week, and he should have made some other arrangements. , ; - Mr. Meltzer: What you say is that as a penalty for volunteering a man should lose his home. Mr. Scott: I do not suggest that, the man should lose his home. The house belongs to-the plaintiff. There seems to be an erroneous impression abroad today that houses, called homes, be-' long completely to the tenants, but with the greatest respect I submit that is not so in this case. It seemed unreasonable to expect the plaintiff to make the sacrifice in this case. -,

It is reported from Dublin that Irish ?» schoolboys are earning £3 a- week by rabbit-trapping after school iours. *