Advice to Landlords

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 106, 21 May 1937, Page 6

Advice to Landlords

"A ' GOOD LANDLORD. "

Sir, — I have always understood that cheap advice is" daugerous, and I' kta, convmced that such is the case since reading "A Good Tenant's'' various attempis at solving the question of. my renting him a house on the terms an.d conditions noininate.d by him if he could advise me hour to get rid of the present tenant who is far in arrears with his xent. His first suggestion that I should seil my house and leave the Dominion was a stupid and impracticable one— Stupid because I couldn't let him the houee if I had soljd it and impracticable because a xecent decision under the Fair Reuts Act in the Magistrate's Court indicates that a landlord cannot sell a house if the tenant is unfavourabl^r inclined. In -his latest letter in your dssue df May 18 he offers the puerile euggestion that I should reverse my vote at next election. How such a proceeding iu 1938 is going to make a house avaiiable -for, him to rent and live -in now I cannot, nor could - any • sane person, compreheud. I am not the person who wrote under the nom-de-plume of "Good Landlord," nor do I know who he might' be so that "A Go9d Tenant's" remarks ok hds letter do not. concern me. -Neither'am I writing under any guise, as your correspondent boldly ,declares," for I am stiii the widow who was born in tliis country over 70 years ago, and I think I would be very safe in saying that I have struggled tlirougk karder times than-he is ever likely to expenence, %and what is more L have reared a large family without' ever.. leaving a landlord lamenting for hia rent. ': "A Good Tenant," besides .being presumptuous, is also very sceptical;"' but he cau have ail his doubts set Ut nought'by calling upon you, Sir, wiieuyou are at liberty to divulge my name ' and addrese, and, as I have been %■ subscriber to your paper since the first ' issue of the Hastings Standard camo out, you will no doubt bo able to vouch for my integTity or supply -any other,. information nis inquisitiveness prompts him to seek. I have previously told him that thefacts I put up cquld not be challenged. by liim, and as he has now negotiated': for anotlier house it ia evident to ma - that he abandoned all hope of securing my house before he » oltered his last siily suggestion. , If at the end of eight years, when tliis house becomes his own, he has to transfer to another town and he becomes both a landlord and a tenant I wohder how he will Teact to it should his tenant decline to" pay him rent J whilst he is paying over part of his wages each week to his landlord f It ' is then he will realise that toi1 be a good tenant or a good landlord it is neces- " sary to be toierant and unselfish, hon- ' ourably to meet one's obligations and 5 yet at the same time to be toierant and considerate. — Yours. etf,.. *

Hastings, 20/5/37. }%. [The wfiter of the letters. signed ."A Good Landlord" is' not' the "Same person, as the oue signing " himsqlf "Good Landlord," although a readerj might be excused for thinking the writers are identical. "A Good Landlord ' ite the widow of a man who was one of the early business men of Hastings. For ,many years she has been dependont for her livelihood upon a small amount of property. She has brought up a family that by modern staudards would beconsidered large. "A Good Tenant"' may have her name and address if hi wishes. — Editor.]