UNDUE AGGREGATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26027, 15 December 1945, Page 4

UNDUE AGGREGATION

WIFE’S PROPERTY INTERESTS COMMITTEE REFUSES FURTHER PURCHASE The Otago Land Sales Committee has refused to grant the application for the transfer of a property in Rose street, Kaikorai, containing 29.7 poles, on the grounds of undue aggregation on the part of the purchaser. The application was made ’by Herbert Brown, the purchaser being Mrs Molly C. de Crewe. . . The committee's reserved judgment stated: "At the date of hearing Mrs de Crewe had a joint estate with her husband in an Auckland property which they had just bought and where they were proceeding to take up home. She owned nothing else—but her husband had two rented properties in Dunedin. Had the present purchaser stood alone the committee could not reasonably have regarded her course of conduct as that of unduly aggregating property. But regard must be had to the holdings of Mrs and. Mr de Crewe jointly. In a recent Land Sales Court decision it is laid down that where a husband and wife are living together and are not living in circumstances which, would justify their being regarded in a practical sense as entirely separate ana independent individuals, account should # be taken of the properties owned by each, in considering whether either should be allowed to acquire more.' The following points impressed themselves on the committee,” the judgment continued:—" (1) Mrs de Crewes purchase is in no sense an urgent one. It was frankly admitted to be .purely, for investment purposes: (2) the house is vacant and as the Crown contended might well be purchased by a Dunedin home-seeker, who would be free of the incubus of * tenant relying on the Fan-Rents Act, (3) the committee feels that this type of purchase may prejudice, rather than serve local requirements; (4) In dealing with alleged ‘undue aggregation 'the court has said generally: ‘What would be regalded as ordinary or reasonable (i.e. In judgi g excessive or inordinate standards of holding properties) must necessarily be determined in relation to the whole body of circumstances attendant upon each pa “'“The 3 committee' therefore finds itself compelled to regard this purchase- as creating undue aggregation particularly so when it is the third acquisition by a married couple of an investment property which acquisition may well be ousting a genuine purchaser making his only purchase of a home, and for this reason the application is refused."