DEFERRED PAYMENT LAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5843, 20 December 1879, Page 3

DEFERRED PAYMENT LAND.

A question of considerable importance to deferred-payment selectors arose at the Dunedin Waste Lauds Board’s meeting on Wednesday. Mr. Fraser, solicitor, applied for the consideration of a selector’s lease, and the point which was in dispute was whether a deferred-payment holder, whose license has been cancelled, can become the purchaser of the laud again, or of any land under the system. The Land Act provides “ that no person who has forfeited the right to hold the land selected by him, by reason of the fraudulent breach of any of the conditions of his license, shall be at any time allowed to make a new selection under this Act.” Now, what is a fraudulent breach ? was asked. Is the mere non-payment of rent, or non - performance of one of the conditions of the license, a fraudulent breach ot any of the conditions ? It is certainly a breach, hut looking at the matter from a common-sense point of view we can hardly call it fraudulent. If, then, it is not a fraudulent breach of the conditions of a selector's license to refuse to pay his rent and incur a forfeiture, what is there to prevent a deferred-payment selector from thus throwing up his land and buying it again at a lower figure ? We might (says the Times) take an instance in point. A number of deferredpayment selectors last year bought land under this system at ridiculously high rates, £ls or £l6 per acre being in many cases paid for land perhaps worth only £5 or £6 per acre. They have in many cases improved their land, fenced it, and built houses and planted gardens. If their land is forfeited and resold, it must, under the Act, go to auction, aud the improvements must be paid in cash by the purchaser to the Government, who are to return such sum, not exceeding 75 per cent, as the Board may determine. Now, in the case such as we are citing, a selector who has bought a 200-acre section for £ls an acre would have to pay £3OO a year for ten years, and supposing he had spent £SOO in improvements, would be a considerable gainer if he were entitled to forfeit his lease, even though he received nothing at all for his improvements, provided he could buy again at the true value of the land. But it the Board should repay him 75 per cent, of the amount expended by him he would be in this position ; Assuming that he could repurchase at £5 an acre, he would have to pay £IOO instead of £3OO a year for ten years, and would only forfeit £125 to the Government, because he would he entitled to receive the value of his improvements, less 25 per cent. The selector in possession would have the advantage also of having to pay very little in cash, while any outsider purchasing would be handicapped ivith a payment of the whole value of the improvements. The question as to what is the meaning of the term “ fraudulent breach” has been referred to the Board's solicitor, and if he decides that an ordinary breach of covenant is not a fraudulent breach, we may expect to find selectors taking advantage of this loophole to divest themselves of a heavy liability which many of them have incurred in a rash moment, and repented of afterwards.