LANDLORDS AND SOLDIERS' RENTS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 232, 19 June 1918, Page 6

LANDLORDS AND SOLDIERS' RENTS

' ' r-« AUSTRALIAN WAR. REGULATIONS EXPLAINED. Further details with regard to the operI ations of tho. Federal War Precautions jloratofium Regulations and tho War Precautions (Active Service'-Moratorium) Regulations, partieulatly as regard* their application to. landlords refusing; to. let houses to soldiers' dependants, were given in the House of .Representatives recently hy the Acting Attorney-General (Mr. Groom), in reply to quiestions. The War Precautions (Moratorium) Regulations, Mr. Groom pointed out, provided that those regulations should not apply to any mortgage, agreement for sale or purchase or lease containing an optional or compulsory purchasing clauso which was executed after September 29, ,!IIG, if the mortgage, agreement, or lease contained n condition or covenant expresslv'excluding the provisions of the regulation. Tho War Precautions (Active Service Moratorium) Regulations, however—those which related to soldiers and their dependants—contained no 6uch provision, and a lessor was not empowered to contract himself out of Hie provisions of those regulations; In this conncction, Mr, Wfltkins (New South Wales) had asked liim if he was aware that property owners, knowing that they could not evict (lie wives of -soldiers, were now refusing to lot their houses to such peisons and whether he would take steps to so extend tho moratorium reflations as to meet such refusals. He invited Mr. Watiins's attention to the following provisions of the AVar Precautions (Activo Service Moratorium) Regulations "Any member of tho Forces, or female dependant, may, if he or she flunks fit require the owner of. a dwelling house to which this regulation appte, which is vacant. <-r is about to become vacant, to let the dwelling house to him or her at a reasonable rental, and the owner shall, unless ho has a reasonable cause for refusing so to do, let tho dwelling h ifthrownerof'a dwelling house tefused, without reasonable cause, to let the house ta accordance with this provision, he was niilty ot au °fi encc -