LANDLORD’S PREFERENCE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 151, 12 September 1928, Page 3

LANDLORD’S PREFERENCE.

AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE. The landlord’s preference in claims under 1 he Bankruptcy Act was referred to Mr J. B. Callan in the course of a lecture on “The Bankruptcy Act and Its Amendments,” to members of the Society of Accountants at Dunedin. Mr Callan, referring to the preferential claims in bankrupt estates, said that next to six months’ rent came wages and salaries. and then the ordinary creditors. The effect of the change made was that the preference to the landlord had been limited to three months, and he came after the wages men. Why the landlord should have any preference at all he could not see. There was the butcher, the baker, the grocer, and the bootmaker, and these had t 6 wait till the landlord had received his three months’ rent. That was only one instance on which the landowner was well placed by the law. In taking out a summons a person would he fairly lucky if he obtained judgment in three weeks’ time, and a further period would have to elapse before a distress warrant could he issued. They might get the bailiff in within a month. If the landlord beoame suspicious as to a man’s financial position he could have a bailiff in under half an hour (reports the “Otago Daily Times”). He had a right to do it. Why? Was there any justification for it? Why should lie have this special advantage? The man who supplied stock had to sue and delay, while the landlord could come in and distrain. It was time the public agitated to have the landlord’s privileges wiped out. He was surprised that the Labor Party had not noticed the point.