LIABILITY FOR RATES

Taranaki Daily News, 15 October 1930, Page 8

LIABILITY FOR RATES

LAND MORTGAGED TO CROWN

THE INGLEWOOD BOROUGH CASE.

ARGUMENT ON APPEAL HEARD.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Tlie Appeal Court case the Crown v. the Inglewood Borough Council was continued to-day. The appeal is from the judgment of Mr> Justice Blair and involves the right of the local body to sell land mortgaged to the Crown for the recovery of rates. Mr. L. M. > Moss, counsel for the Inglewood Council, submitted that the Ratimr Aet created in,New Zealand a charge in respect of rates on land without registration. The charge arose merely by the act of levying rates. Respondents did not seek to rate Crown lands for the property in question at all material times was not owned, by Hie Crown, which rias merely the mort-o-ao'ee. He submitted that the charge in favour of the rating authority was superior' to the interest of the Crown ahd that the borough could exercise all the powers given it by the Act against land irrespective of the fact that the Crown as mortgagee was affected thereby. Mr. Heine, in support of Mr. Moss, contended that section 384 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1920, did not apply so as to exempt the Crown from the provisions of the Rating Act further than it was exempted in that Act itself. j Mr. Fair, K.C., in reply submitted that if the Rating Act did create & charge on the land it was a most curious charge. It was not created in express words by the Act. and if it was not fortified by a judgment within three years it disappeared. He • submitted there could not be a charge of such a vague and floating nature. The Court reserved its- decision.