RENT REDUCTIONS

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3183, 28 May 1932, Page 5

RENT REDUCTIONS

EFFECT OF RECENT ACT.

AN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION,

In the course of an official explanation of the operation of the National Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1932, recently issued, special attention _ is given to the question of the reduction of rent.

t is explained that part 111. of the Act (in its application to rents) applies in terms to rents of all land or buildings or poi’tions of buildings, except the following:— (1) Rents payable under conti’acts entered into after April 1. 1932.

(2) Rents payable under Crown leases (including leases of certain lands, which, though not Crown lands, are administered by Land Boards in the same manner as Crowns lands), in cases where the l’ecent reserved does not exceed 5 per cent of the capital value.

(3) Rents payable under leases or other contracts that may be excluded from the operation of Part 111. of the Act, by the Govenxor-General by Or-der-in-Council, acting under the authority of section 29 (4). WEEKLY TENANCIES.

In the case of weekly and other short tenancies, the explanation continues:—lt will be seen from the above statement as to the extent of the application of the Act that weekly and other short-term tenancies come within its scope in its libera] interpretation, and that tenants holding under such tenancies ai’e entitled to the benefit of the legislation, as from April 1. 1932, until the tenancy is duly determined. There is nothing in the law, however, to prevent a landlord from terminating any such tenancy in a proper manner, and when such a tenancy has been,so determined the landlord is within his rights in creating a new tenancy on terms to be fixed by agreement with his tenant.

Coming to the question of leases of furnished premises, it is stated:—The Act is silent as to the tenancy of buildings with furniture or other chattels. As, however, its application is expressly limited to “ rents payable in respect of land or of any interest in land or in respect of any building or part of a building” and for certain chattels thei’ein, the. reduction of rent provided for in the Act is applicable only to so much threof as applies to the building or part, and no reduction is made by the Act in respect of the rent payable for furniture or other chattels. If the parties cannot agree as to the apportionment of the rent between the building and the chattels such an appoi’tionment would become a matter of fact for determination by any court of competent jurisdiction in any judicial proceeding in which such apportionment was in issue.