HUTT VALLEY LAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 39, 16 February 1943, Page 3

HUTT VALLEY LAND

SALE TO GOVERNMENT

QUESTION IN COURT CASE

An action described by Mr. Justice Blair as really cne for interpretation of an agreement was commenced in the Supreme Court yesterday. The Hutt Golf Course Estate Company, Ltd. (Mr. R. I. M. Sutherland) claimed from the Lower Hutt City Corporation (Mr. H. F. O'Leary, K.C., and Mr. N. T. Gillespie) a total of £720 as the cost of sewage and water branch connections made to sections in a subdivision under an agreement entered into with the then borough in 1927, and, alternatively, claimed £720 as damages for breach of agreement. The 'defence was that, as the company had sold the sections to the Crown, which did not require to have building permits from local bodies, the corporation had no power either to collect or enforce payment of the money and was therefore not liable for payment. The agreement of 1927 set out, inter alia, that the then borough council should not be liable for more than £7 10s per section in respect of the connections, and that the money should not be payable to the company until the council received payment for the connections from the owner or purchaser of the land, the issue of each building permit to be conditional on such payment being made to the council. In reply to Mr. Justice Blair, Mr. Sutherland said he understood that there was no procedure by which the Crown could be joined as a defendant in the action. His Honour said he could not understand why the Government had made any trouble about the payments. DEPARTMENT'S POSITION. Mr. O'Leary said that the Housing Department was not governed by the Municipal Corporations Act or by any regulations or bylaws, and therefore could not be compelled to pay. There had to be payment, of course, for the water supplied. His Honour asked how the Department could get water if there were no pipes or connections. Mr. O'Leary: If they asked us for water, we would have to give it to them at a reasonable price. Evidence would be called, Mr. O'Leary said, to show that the Housing Department officials knew nothing about the so-called connection fees being payable until the matter was brought to their notice by the corporaI tion on the plaintiff company making a claim. That was at least two years after the Department's first purchases. The official view probably was that with prior knowledge of the connection fees payable the Department would have paid so much less per section.

Against that contention, said Mr. Sutherland, the Department would have had to put in the connections itself. "We claim that it was the council's duty under the agreement to get payment from the Government," he added.

Mr. O'Leary submitted that by selling the land to the Government the company had made it impossible for the corporation to collect or enforce payment. The Housing Department bought land under the powers conferred by the Housing Act. NO COMPULSION. To his Honour, Mr. Sutherland said that although the Housing Act gave power to pay out money for water and drainage services, and so on, it did not compel the Department to make such payments. In the witness box, James Stellin, managing director of the plaintiff company, said that when he sold the land to the Government he expected the Government would pay the £7 10s payable in respect of each section. That was why he had sold the sections so cheaply to the Government at £167 10s each. He had never thought it was his business to disclose to individual buyers or the Government officials that the charge was payable. He did not know what the council was charging for each building permit, and did not attempt to ascertain where the £7 10s in each case was coming from.

It was submitted by Mr. O'Leary that the company which had the benefit, of the clauses in the agreement had put it out of the power of the council ito enforce those clauses and collect | the money. The council had never done anything to make impossible the agreement's enforcement, but the company had. If the company could satisfy the council that the money was recoverable from the Department well and good, but the council had been unable to discover that. The council had provided water for the subdivision, but it had no option, as it could be forced by law to make that provision at a reasonable charge. » (Proceeding.)