ALLEGED “RACKET” IN HOUSE POSSESSION CASES

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1948, Page 8

ALLEGED “RACKET” IN HOUSE POSSESSION CASES

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, October 11. There were grounds for suspecting that a “racket” was being run in Auckland to use house possession orders as a means* of obtaining possession with a view to selling, said the, chairman of the Auckland State house ■ allocation committee (Mr R. F. Bar- j ter) today. He also expressed the op- i inion that all State house applications ’ should go through one committee on. which returned servicemen should be represented and that a man’s military. service alone should not give him priority in the allocation of a house. '‘The committee is greatly concern- , ed about applications to the court for orders for possession,” said Mr Barter. “There are grounds for suspecting that a racket is being run and there seems to be an impression abroad that after a landlord obtains a possession order the tenant gains priority in his application for a State house. That is not necessarily so, because we view with suspicion the methods of, and motives actuating, some persons who apply for possession orders on the grounds that they' wish to occupy their houses. . :

“When the fact that a possession order has been issued is used to try to persuade the committee to allocate a house to an evicted tenant not only are the tenants’ circumstances investigated by the committee but a thorough investigation is- also made of the reason, for the landlord’s action,” said Mr Barter. “Some of those persons think they can automatically fall back on the State housing programme to satify their own wishes. This is especially so in many cases where people wish to sell their houses to returned servicemen under the rehabilitation scheme.”