Valuations.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 150, 6 July 1901, Page 2

Valuations.

(To the Editor of the Times.) Sir, —“ Worker,” like nine in every ton, would not sell his home for twice its market value ; but if he went to the Valuation Appeal Court, he would find that the first question put to him would be ‘‘Whaii would you sell it for?” and that upon his own double market value or more the Court, or rather the man from Wellington, would settle the value of his home for rating purposes. Now need we wonder at this, when we find a bench of three Government nominees, backed up by three other Government servants, all who seem io think it their special duty to maintain valuations, which in my opinion are bordering on confiscation. I make no reflection on ' the integrity of the Court—in its president we have one of the ablest S.M.’s in the colony—but the Court should be composed of experts, elected, one each by the County and City Councils, to represent the ratepayers, and the president by i the Government. I hope the Conference ! of County Chairmen at Wellington will j note this fact. The last Court held here was utterly unsatisfactory. Scores of revaluations were made when the Court was sitting, and notices posted to objectors to appear next day, when their names were called and the valuations sustained in their absence, at a time the Court might reasonably have known that nine-tenths ; of these notices were still lying in the Post office unserved. Those who would like to see samples of these valuations let them look at the scores of samples sent to Wellington by the Haiti Road Board ; the case of the man whose valuation was raised JE9O because ho put 3s worth of paint on his house is nothing to some of those without even a brush of paint or its equivalent.—l am, etc., A, X. Rosa,