EVASION INEVITABLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26589, 11 October 1947, Page 8

EVASION INEVITABLE

LAND SALES PRICES UNSTABLE BASIS OF ACT P.A. WELLINGTON, Oct. 10. The successful operation of the Land Sales Act in its present form would have been practicable only if the basis upon whidv it was stabilised, namely 1942 values, could itself have been stabilised. This was stated by the president of the New Zealand Council of Land Agents’ Institute, Mr J. Gordon Harcourt, in his address at the annual meeting in Nelson this week. “It is common knowledge,” he said, “that building costs which were obtaining in 1942 have increased alarmingly, and with far more purchasing power in the country than available goods and services can meet, the evasion of the Act was inevitable.”

The method of administration also, in his opinion, had been sometimes at fault. ’ “The black market in land is, unfortunately, rife in the country to-day, and human nature being what it is. with cupidity one of the ingredients in its make-up, I am afraid it will be very difficult to stamp it out as long as building costs, which are still rising, continue at the level, some 30 to 40 per cent, higher than the basis fixed by the Act. The only real solution is more houses. The provision of rental houses under the State housing scheme may perhaps be having its repercussions, because there undoubtedly exists in human nature an ingrained desire for each man to own a piece of land, and much of the building today is by the State for rental pur poses. The result is that a greater part of the very large demand for freehold has to be met from existing houses, and thus, even though the l records of the Land Sales Court show a vast volume of land transactions, for the most part these represent changes in occupation and ownership rather than any real step towards overcoming the shortage.” ■