NEW TENANT PROTECTION LAW
The obstacles in the way of a person desiring lo purchase a house (if the person has sufficient money) have not been nearly so formidable as those which face the man or woman who wants a house to rent, but the conditions will be materially altered by the legislative amendment which the House of Representative has just passed (says the Auckland “Star”). A person who buys a house must now find “suitable alternative accommodoation” for the tenant, or-'else convince a Court that his hardship in being excluded from his own house will be greater than the tenant’s hardship in being evicted. The onus of proving that “suitable alternative accommodation” is available is on the landlord. It appears that the principal effect of this latest example of legislative tinkering will be to discourage people from buying houses, and to make house-owners extremely chary of letting their property. That it will prevent some bad cases of hardship need not be doubled, but, at best, it is just another palliative. The Government would have done better to consider seriously the removal of obstacles to the building of new houses, which alone can reduce the existing shortage.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NEM19371129.2.25
Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 29 November 1937, Page 3
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197NEW TENANT PROTECTION LAW Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 29 November 1937, Page 3
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