Sell At 1942 Values, Buy At 1947

Northern Advocate, 18 October 1947, Page 7

Sell At 1942 Values, Buy At 1947

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The amount of money being spent by private people on valuations was colossal, and it was time the formula was altered and the public were given “a fair spin,” said Mr A. S. Sutherland (O—Hauraki) in the House yesterday afternoon, when the vote on the estimates for the Valuation Department was under discussion.

Mr Sutherland said people, if they sold their properties, received a price based on the 1942 values, but if they wanted another property they had to buy at 1947 values. That was why a number of people were getting off the straight path, and that was why there was a tendency for people to be driven to methods bordering on roguery. Many ex-servicemen walking the roads today looking for homes would be able to get what they wanted if the formula was altered. Mr W. A. Bodkin (O—Central Otago) said he did not know of any obstacles in the way of rehabilitating ex-ser-vicemen on to farms or into houses so great as the present Crown valuation system. He said the system adopted wrote down the valuation of land so as to bolster up the value of improvements.