CORRESPONDENCE Leasehold Values

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1947, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE Leasehold Values

[TO THE EDITOR] Si r _Kindly allow me space to protest against the contemplated attempt by the Crown to reduce the seller’s interest in his leasehold property. Future sellers should get the same treatment as previous sellers. I wonder if all the leasehold property occupiers are going to allow themselves to be deprived of the money that they paid for their sections, when they sell them? If a man paid £l5O for his section he is only going to be allowed to sell it for £5O, although he has paid all the rates, land rent, and has lost interest by having his money tied up in the property for years. Don’t forget that if the Government, is allowed to get away with it now, it will see that the change is continued after the land sales procedure is dropped. The Government is a bad landlord, so far as the occupier of a leasehold section is concerned, because the occupier has to pay all the rates and the land rent and the Government pays nothing. Now, when it comes to disposing of his section, the. Government even tries to block him from getting interest on his money that has lain there for years. If a man can get the Government to convert a section from leasehold to freehold, say in Greymouth, he has to pay a heavy price for it, becauseX it will tell him that it-is in a good locality. Now if the change is made and the leaseholder wants to sell his interest in a section he will be just allowed the actual improvements that he has put into it, nothing for the locality value for which he really paid when he bought the section from the previous holder. In all the land , sales committee’s decisions no increase in price has ever been allowed because of the locality factor, but decreases have been made. I hope that a meeting of leaseholders of Greymouth will be called.—Yours etc BRITISH. Greymouth, March 21.