NOT AIMED AT AGENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 5

NOT AIMED AT AGENTS

LAND SALES LEGISLATION EXPLANATION BY MINISTER P.A. WELLINGTON, Feb. 11. “ Nonsense,” was how Mr Skinner to-day described the charge made yesterday by Mr O. H. Benge, president of the Wellington branch of the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand, that the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Act was deliberately framed to defeat land agents and deprive them of their living. The Minister said the Act was framed for two main purposes—to facilitate the settlement of ex-servicemen on reasonable terms and to prevent the price of land and buildings from reaching the ridiculous heights that unscrupulous speculators had welcomed after past wars. He claimed that the Act was achieving its objects pretty well. With reference to Mr Benge’s charge of non-co-operation against the Rehabilitation Department, the Minister promised to make a full personal investigation of any concrete instances supplied by Mr Benge or any other land agent. The Minister said that from the inception of the Act to date land sales committees had dealt with 21,894 transfers f of farm lands and 145,028 urban properties—an all-time record in property transfers. Most significant of all was that the committees so far had ordered reductions in the prices asked by vendors in'.48,761 cases, amounting to £7,674,858. Mr Skinner added that if anything was thwarting land agents it was the great demand for land and houses, which enabled vendors to find buyers without the assistance of land agents. The Minister also said that ex-service-men so far had bought with rehabilitation loans 4500 farms and over 11,000 houses.