POSSESSION OF HOUSE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 21, 6 September 1946, Page 5

POSSESSION OF HOUSE

LOCAL ACTION FAILS

DEFENDANT’S CLAIM .UPHELD A further case illustrating the unfortunate circumstances of both plaintiff and defendant due to the housing shortage was heard in the Whakatane Court last Tuesday before Mr E. L. Walton, S.M., when Jessie Ailsa Stubbs (Mr G. Otley) sought possession and arrears of rent from Reginald Murphy (Mr C. A. Suckling) the occupier of her house in Whakatane of which he had been a tenant since 1944. 9

The story of the plaintiff was that as the wife of a servicemen who had been overseas since 1939 she now desired the house as the only alternative accommodation for herself and her two small children. She related how in 1-944 under mutual agreement she had arranged with Murphy to exchange homes with them in Auckland the rent to be on a similar basis of 30/- each way. Murphy and his family had occupied a State-owned house in Auckland and she had merely moved therein-without notifying the State Advances Corporation of the change of tenancy. Recently the authorities had discovered the change-over and had declared she was not an approved tenant and therefore would have to quit. She now had been given two * weeks notice and that period had expired. She now desired possession of the house in which the Murphy’s lived ' together with arrears allegedly amounting to £25 which she claimed defendant had retained over the period at the rate of 4/- weekly. Plaintiff admitted to Mr Suckling that she had agreed to make some arrangement for the erection of a shed in which to accommodate defendant’s car, and that this matter had been delayed for a long period and was not yet complete. She had however never at any time agreed to make a deduction from the rent as compensation for this.

The defence was that plaintiff had fixed the rent for the house at 30/weekly providing that she erected a shed in which to garage defendant’s car. In the house which they had vacated in Auckland, a garage was part of the establishment and had been let for 5/- weekly. In view of the fact that the shed had never been finally erected Murphy declared himself entitled to deduct 4/- from the weekly rent remittance. This sum constituted the -claim for rent arrears. On the action for possession defendant claimed hardship, which was due to the utter impossibility of finding alternative accommodation in Whakatane. Three alternatives had been suggested by plaintiff’s solicitors but all had been found baseless. Defendant said he was supporting a wife and three children. He would be only too glad to vacate the house if he could find somewhere else to go, but that was out of the - question. Corroborative evidence was given by defendant’s wife. Summing up for defendant, the magistrate said that his story appeared to be the more reliable. He cited from the correspondence produced in court, that not long ago plaintiff was offering to sell the house to defendant, almost persuading him to buy, but he found himself unable to do so. Unfortunatey the letters were not dated but they made it obvious that plaintiff did not want the house at that time. He preferred to believe the story of the defendant with regard to the details of the shed for accommodating the car. It seemed obvious that some arrangement had been made and not carried out by plaintiff. He thought the sum of 4/- fair enough and if Mr Suckling’s arithmetic was corect it appeared that defendant owed no arrears at all. Judgment would be found for defendant on both counts.

Costs against plaintiff, amounting to £3 3s, were allowed.