POINTS OF LAND LAW.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1849, 26 January 1880, Page 2

POINTS OF LAND LAW.

What is “contiguity” in the sense meant by the Land Act when dealing with deferred payment sections ? Thia (says a Southland paper) was the knotty question at the meeting of the Invercargill Waste Land Board, raised by an application from Longwood. The legal opinion read wae . to the effect that if the two pieces of land I were separated by a road line, they were not contiguous to each other in the sense of the Act. Some members of the Board differed from this, pointing out that the fact of a road did not interfere with selling land for cash, and ought not to do so in the case of deferred payment land. Another member held that the road fairly divided the two blocks, and they could not I e considered “ contiguous,” which inferred running conterminous, without anything between. The latter view was adopted by the majority, and decided the application. At the same sitting, the legal meaning of “ imbdivision” involved someconsideration. A settler applied for a block with the view of placing all his family on it. At present, the block is surveyed for four allotments, and the request was that it be made three by s resurvey. Was this “ subdivision ?’ ’ The settler, who argued his case well, held that it was net, the word implying a division into a greater than the existing number; and vrhat he wanted was the reverse, the total f.rea not exceeding more than the law allowed. One member of the Board suggested that the applicant simply put a hut with a “but and a ben ” on the boundary line, as a way out of the difficulty ; but thisdid not meet with much favor; so, to end. the matter, the sections were allotted as surveyed, which was practically refusing the application.