PROPERTY RATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24632, 13 June 1941, Page 4

PROPERTY RATES

INCLUSION IN ASSESSMENT VALUATION PROCEDURE IMPORTANT DUNEDIN CASE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 12. A case of great importance to local bodies and affecting all existing systems of rating on annual values came before the Court of Appeal to-day. The case is that of the Dunedin City Council versus James William Young, and the court is asked to interpret section 2 of the Rating Act, 1925, and 1 , to rule on the method of valuing of leasehold adopted by the city valuer for rating purposes. Young is the lessee of the Excelsior Hotel. In terms of the lease and by Statute he is liable to pay the rates from year to year imposed by the corporation on the premises. Dunedin is a district in which the system of rating property on its annual value is in force, and the city valuer, in determining for rating purposes the rent at which the property would let from year to,, year, and before deducting from it the 20 per cent, provided for by the Rating Act to be deducted in the case of a house, buildings, and other perishable property, added to it the rates which plaintiff was liable to pay to the corporation. Young objected to this valuation, and the matter came before Mr Justice Kennedy at Dunedin, who on December 12 last delivered judgment holding that there was no warrant in the rating legislation for a valuer taking a rent which, would be paid by a tenant and adding to it the rates payable by him as occupier to the local authority, and then returning such increased sum as the annual value of the premises. He held consequently that the system of valuing adopted by the Dunedin City Corporation was incorrect. From that judgment the corporation has appealed. The case was unfinished when the court rose for the day.