EVICTIONS AND HOUSING.

Evening Star, Issue 22891, 24 February 1938, Page 12

EVICTIONS AND HOUSING.

Ownership of private dwellings is no longer an attractive business enterprise. Seizing on the unfortunate example of only, a few out of many landlords who in the past may have been neither just nor scrupulous, the Government has introduced, through the Fair (Rents Act, stern restrictive legislation which means in effect that a sledgehammer has been used to crack a nut. The question of evictions has been dealt with in an all-embracing manner that militates severely against any chance of landlords and tenants arriving at an amicable agreement with the same ease as before Labour came into power. Admittedly New Zealand,'in the same way as any other country, has come up. against the case of the hard landlord and the harassed tenant, but if the country’s laws cannot' be framed so as to deal with this particular problem in a more incisive and selective fashion without recourse to wholesale bludgeoning, the Government is sadly lacking in legislative finesse. In a statement published today the Minister of Finance (the Plon. W. Nash) seeks to justify the eviction clause of the Fair Rents Act as it was amended last year by stating that its purpose is purely protective. It would be a sad commentary on*tho character of property owners in the

Dominion if it ■were agreed that the need for this “ protection ” was so widespread as to require corrective measures applicable to all. The grievous disadvantages of the Government’s procedure are so many that no surprise need be occasioned by the steadily accumulating public criticism directed at it. Unquestionably New Zealand’s building programme—the programme which otherwise would have made better progress in the good years following the economic depression—has been hampered. The conditions, indeed, are such that it is easy to sympathise with the strong views expressed by the chairman of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce (Mr W. 11. Fee), who recently condemned the Fair Rents Act as “one of the most detrimental enactments to local ■ progress ever placed on the Statute Book.” Tho legislation has been a deterrent to the provision of additional houses through private enterprise. In other ways, too, a great deal of harm has been done to business, because houses are frequently Ikept empty for tho purpose of making sales, and the furnishing trade, among others, has suffered considerably. Cases have also been quoted in which property owners have been unable to proceed with the erection of new buildings because of old houses on the land, the tenants of which refused to move even when reasonably suitable alternative dwellings were provided for them. This is but one particular ' aspect of the position which will have< to be revised as speedily as possible. A further burden is placed on the landlord by tho legal call on him, and not on the tenant, to proyide suitable accommodation in a case where the tenant is required to quit. There is a wealth of meaning in the word “suitable.” If a tenant makes up his mind not to move it is a comparatively easy matter for him to find fault with any alternative place that may he suggested to him. Among the grounds that can he offered in support of an order ■ for recovery of possession one- no longer finds that which gives a landlord permission to evict if his house has not 'been the subject of reasonable care. Naturally this has adverse repercussions on many trades, for it is unlikely that an owner will go to the trouble and expense of repair work and renovations unless he has some guarantee that respect will be shown for his property. Another proviso which is now missing is that which once made it possible for a landlord to take possession of his own house if he required it for his own occupancy. Mr Nash states that his party’s legislation is in part designed to protect the public from the landlord who uses this excuse to get rid of a tenant and then put the rent up for a newcomer., But surely a Government so prolific in ■“ new ideas ” as that holding power in New Zealand can conjure up some more convincing legislation than this to meet instances wherein only a shrewd minority are involved. The spirit of New Zealand justice is in poor straits if a property owner encounters such a network of difficulties in getting possession of his own house. Again it is a case of all being made to suffer for the sins of the few.