DEFERRED PAYMENT PURCHASES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1383, 1 June 1878, Page 10

DEFERRED PAYMENT PURCHASES.

An important matter affecting purchasers of deferred payment sections came under the notice of the Waste Lands Board at its sitting

on May 29. Amongst other applications to bo declared purchasers of such sections vras one by Thomas Fahey. This applicant made the requisite declaration,, which ne signed before a Justice of the Peace, to the effect that he had not previously acquired land under the deferred payment system, but on the records of the department being consulted it was found that this was a false declaration, though in all probability not intentionally so. The applicant had originally taken up an agricultural lease, but had since exchanged this lease for one under the deferred payment system, and thus he came under the provision of tho Act, which debars a fresh holding being granted to any person who has "at any time acquired the freehold of any land under the deferrod-payment system" (62nd section). His application had therefor to be refused. An ither application, similar in nature, had also to be refused, though on somewhat different grounds. In this case the applicant was one R. D. Ross. He also had bought at auction, and had made tb» requisite declaration. The language of the declaration so made in accordance with the Act is : " That I am not the holder, either in my own name or in the name of any other person, and that I am not beneficially interested in any lands of the Crown within the Colony under the deferred- payment system, or under any agricultural lease, to an amount which, added to the acreage comprised in this present application, would exceed 320 acres in extent." Now, the records of the department showed that Ross already held three agricultural leases, amounting to the total area of 300 acres, so that, with the "acreage comprised in his present application" — the acreage, namely, he had purchased at auction — his aggregate area would have reached about 500 acres. Therefore his purchase at auction came to nothing. In answer to queries by Mr Thomson, it transpired that there had been four other applicants for the section Robs had secured, above whom he had bid for the land at auction ; and Mr Thomson suggested that the firat chance of future competition for it should be given to these four applicants. The Chief Commissioner and Mr Strode, however, were afraid the Board had no power in the matter but to begin proceedings de novo ; but after some little discussion it vi as agreed to defer the point for further consideration.

It would be well that applicants who go to auction should remember these points. Occasionally an applicant gains his desired block only by buying others applicants off, and if such a one sho\ild afterwards find that, because of the extent of his previous holdings, the Board had no power to confirm his purchase, he would be left to regret a possibly considerable loss of money in addition to the time < and trouble he had expended over his application.