PERMANENT HOLDINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14819, 24 October 1911, Page 5

PERMANENT HOLDINGS.

A LONDON SCHEME.

[from our own correspondent.] London, September 15. It is announced that Lord Howard de Walden is considering with his advisers a. scheme for dealing with his London property so as to give to tenants a permanent holding instead of the usual London leases. The board of management of the estate will meet shortly. Lord Howard de Walden is one of London's largest landowners, much of bis income of nearly a-quarter of a million a year being derived from town property, which descended to him from his grandmother, sister of the fifth Duke of Portland and co-heiress to the Portland estates. His estate in London includes a great part of Oxford-street, Portland Place, Marylebone, and numerous of the little streets converging into' these thoroughfares. The announcement, therefore, affects not only an important shopping centre, but the headquarters of the English medical profession and a new residential district which is rising from the ruins of what was formerly known as Portland Town. St. John's Wood. In 1904 the ground rents were estimated to produce about £200 a year, and the rent roll is probably more than that now. It will be recollected that last March, Lord Howard do Walden brought an action against one of his Oxford-street tenants for libel arising out of the terms upon which certain premises on the estate were held, and a very reasonable spirit was then shown by all parlies concerned. The details of the scheme will be awaited with great interest by London landlords and tenants.