COURT OF APPEAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22834, 19 March 1936, Page 9

COURT OF APPEAL

„SALE OF FARM LAND V NON-PAYMENT OF RATES (Pbb United Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 18. The Court of Appeal reserved its decision in the case of Walters and another versus Malfroy and the Mauukau County. The mortgagees of part of the land owned by James Paterson Sinclair are appealing from the judgment of Mr Justice Callan delivered at Auckland on October 7, 1935, refusing a writ of injunction to restrain the respondents from (selling Sinclair's land as a whole for unpaid rates.

The facts are that Sinclair is the owner of 172 acres of land in the Manukau County, the plan of which shows three pieces. Owing to his failure to pay his rates, the Manukau County Council obtained judgment for these and took steps to sell the land under the provisions of the Rating Act, 1926. The land was advertised for sale as a whole, but the appellants objected to this and commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court to prevent the respondent Malfroy from proceeding with the sale. The Manukau County Council was then by consent joined as a further defendant and the first-named respondent has since taken no part in the proceedings. The grounds for the appellants' objection were that the land had been wrongly valued as a wholes* and that the entries in the valuation roll and rate book as well as all subsequent steps taken were without jurisdiction. The three pieces of land are all mortgaged, each to different sets of mortgagees. The appellants further contend that the effect of selling the land as a whole will be. to throw the. burden of the rates of one piece, which is mortgaged to the State Advances Department, on to the other pieces. In the alternative it is claimed that as the respondent Malfroy proposes to sell something other than the unencumbered fee simple of part of the land, this would be outside the powers given by section 7 of the Eating Act, 1925.