ON “DUE” DATE

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 148, 20 June 1934, Page 2

ON “DUE” DATE

THE RECOVERY OF RATES

SUPREME COURT DECISION “The mere striking or making of a rate is not sufficient to make it immediately payable,” said Mr Justice Ostler in the course of a reserved judgment delivered at Auckland recently, determining the time when rates become legally due. His honour held that the word “due” in section 77 of the Rating Act, dealing with the limitation of time when rates are recoverable, means “immediately payable and recoverable at law.” The effect of this is to uphold a contention that “due” means after the demand notices have been issued, and not when public notice is given of the rates. The judgment arose out of an action for the issue of a writ of certiorari to remove or quash a judgment given by Mr W. R. M’Kean, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, the plaintiffs being Robern N. Oborn, labourer, of Milford, and Basil Edgar Clark, retired, of Kohimarama, and the defendant, the Auckland City Council. The facts of the case were that Oborn, the owner of a section of land in the city mortgaged to Clark, fell into arrear with the payment of the rates. The public notice of he Ciy Council rates for the year 1927-28 was issued on July 1, 1927, but the demand for rates was not sent to Oborn until July 14, 1927. A judgment by default was obtained against Oborn on July 1, 1930, for arrears of rates for the three proceeding years. This judgment was claimed by the plaintiffs to be without jurisdiction because it was after three years from the time the 1927-28 rates first became due. «