THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, November 17, 1943. LAND SALES PROCEDURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25385, 17 November 1943, Page 2

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Wednesday, November 17, 1943. LAND SALES PROCEDURE

It was scarcely to be anticipated that legislation so complex in form and so wide and searching in scope and intention as the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Act is would lend itself to simplicity of administrative procedure. In the few weeks during which the district Land Sales Committees have been functioning many applications for the sale and purchase of properties, both urban and rural, have been dealt with by them. The public generally, it may be supposed, has taken a keen interest in the working of the Act and, more particularly, in the conduct of proceedings before the Land Sales Committees—to the extent, that is, that details of such proceedings have been printed in (he newspapers. It has been represented to us by parties interested in property sales negotiated in this district that the proceedings before the Land Sales Committee should not be reported in our columns. No doubt other newspapers have had similar representations made to them, mainly—as has been our own experience—on the grounds that property sales do not normally receive publicity to the extent that now obtains, and that what may be the pi’ivate concern of either seller or purchaser should not arbitrarily become a matter of public knowledge. It is, of course, possible to sympathise with the point of view thus expressed. A property sale is not usually 1 'news ” unless some unusual features attend it; and, as may reasonably be argued, sales of houses or other properties have always been a normal feature of the conduct of real estate business. Against that view, however, has to be set the fact that property transfers are taking place according to what is, in the meantime, an entirely novel procedure, and in terms of legislation which, during the period of its parliamentary enactment, was warmly controverted among every section of the community. For that reason the publicity given to proceedings before the Land Sales Committees may not only satisfy an understandable public curiosity, but may also have a definite value in informing the public mind as to the merits or demerits of the procedure established by the Government for the control of property values. But apart altogether from any question of the function of the newspapers in this respect, the Act is itself quite definite on the question whether proceedings before the committees should or should not be regarded as of public interest. The nature of these proceedings is clearly indicated in a clause which provides that, they shall be heard in public “unless the court or the committee in any particular case, due regard being had to the interests of the parties and of other persons concerned, considers that the hearing or any part thereof should be taken in private.” It is further laid down that either the court or a Land Sales Committee may make an order prohibiting the publication of any report or of any part of the proceedings, provided that no such prohibition shall apply to the names and descriptions of the parties, particulars of the land affected, or the amount claimed or awarded as compensation, “ or, as the case may be, the amount of the purchase money, rent, or other consideration for' which the consent of the court is applied for or granted.” It will be seen, therefore, that publication of reports of transactions concluded by the committees is a requirement virtually insisted upon by the Act itself, except in circumstances covered by the committees’, or the court’s,' discretion. It has been complained to us, resentfully, in the case of recent local transactions, that intending purchasers have been questioned by Government officials about the means by which they propose to finance the purchase of the property sought. “Where are you getting the money to buy this property? ” is said to be a question tha-t has been asked of the applicant to purchase. We can find no authority for the asking of such a question except when it is applicable to the purchase or leasing of farm lands—in which case it may have a bearing on the capacity of the prospective purchaser or lessee to work and develop the property satisfactorily. Coir information is, however, that it has been asked in respect of ordinary urban houSe properties, and if that be true the inquiry would certainly savour of an impertinent misuse of powers. Some dissatisfaction has been expressed, too, with the pr6vision dealing with the filing in the court of an order made by a Land--Sales Committee. Such order, approving of a particular transaction, does not become valid, under the existing-iaw until the expiry of a period of fourteen days, which is allowed for the lodging of an appeal. The effect of this may conceivably be to impose quite unnecessary hardship in cases where a purchaser is anxious to obtain immediate possession and where no objection to that course is offered by the vendor. In that respect the operation of the law obviously should be made more elastic than it is at.present. ---