LAND AGENTS BILL.

Waipa Post, Volume III, Issue 138, 20 August 1912, Page 2

LAND AGENTS BILL.

MR YOUNG'S SPEECH.

The following is* the text of Mr J. A. Young's speech on the - second reading of the Land Agents Bill:—Mr Young (Wair kato) considered that the Bill was very necessary to the country, n t so much to raise the status of land agents, but for the protection of those who bought or sold land. There was room for improvement in the respect that there should be restrictions upon those who carried through transactions in land. Their work as agents should be of a bona fide character. A land agent should not be a person trafficking in y, 1 ind, but one who acted as agent -v for the vendor. He had heard of instances of persons who had land placed in their hands to sell at a given price, but who had sold if at a higher figure,while the vendor had received only the price he had fixed. In other words, the agents had become purchasers on their own account. . He would go further than was proposed in the Bill, and say that all moneys received by an agent on behalf of vendors should be paid into a trust account. There should be no subtraction of the commission from the proceeds of the sale, because' those moneys 1 were the property of the vendor, *'* and the commission should be a debt between the parties con- .

cerned. Some agents effected dummy sales, in that they entered into league with persons of no substance to make fictitious pur- * chases so as to enable them to / appropriate a commission, which was the full amount of a small deposit. That also should be provided against. He hoped the Bill would be taken up bv the Government and passed into law. Reputable land agents in all parts of the country desired that there should be some such legislation, and the vendors and purchasers had a right to protection. Provision should be made for the frequent—or, at all events, the occasional auditing of - trust accounts. The amount of the fee was a minor matter, and the. question of whether they should be paid to the hospital district, or the local body, or the State, was only. a matter of detail. The principle was that the land agent should be registered, and that people doing business with him J could feel that they were entrust- ■ iiig their affairs to a reputable, ..'■' "' "■'■■:,