The Star. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1880.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 74, 24 December 1880, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1880.

PROPERTY ASSESSMENT.

A curious case has been brought under our notice in relation to the Property Assessment. A property is let for a certain rental, considerably more than a fourteenth part of its actual value, which is eleflyly uenneA hy bhe htct that there is a, right of purchase allowed to the lessee, at the end of the term of the lease, for considerably less than fourteen times the rental. At tbe present time, the property is certainly worth less than the amount fixed in the purchasing clause ; nevertheless, although the owner represented the facts of the case to the Commissioner, the former has been served with a valuation notice, assessing the property at fourteen times the rental, and therefore considerably higher than the selling value some ye&YS i)6»ce. Whe e&eeb o$ this decision, if it be sustained, might be serious — for instance : If a purchaser offered to pay a heavy rental for a property for a long term of years, with a right to purchase at a certain sum at any time during the currency of tbe lease, the owner will have to consider that he wiU he forced to make a considerable allowance in his estimate, because all property let to tenants is arbitrarily assessed at fourteen times the rental, notwithstanding any right to purchase for a less sum being clearly set forth in the lease. That is to say, that, during the currency of the lease, the owner will I/are to pay property- tax not upon the real but upon the supposed value ot the property, and his rent will, therefore, be proportionately diminished.