CHURCH IN DISUSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 594, 21 February 1929, Page 13

CHURCH IN DISUSE

IS BUILDING RATEABLE? SUPREME COURT ARGUMENT Whether a certain building once used as a church but temporarily disused for worship owing to damage by fire should be rated during its period oi vacancy was the question submitted to Mr. Justice Blair in the Supreme Court this morning. The Thames Borough Council (Mr. A. H. Johnstone) sought to recover £44 8s 9d as rates from the Congregational Union (Mr. W. D. Glaister). Mr. Johnstone said the building in question was one formerly known as tho Congregational Church at Shortland in the Thames Borough. The rates claimed covered a period from April 1, 1926.. to March 31, 1927. On or about February 12, 1926, the back portion was so damaged by tire as to render it unfit for worship. It was not repaired until over a year later, when the building was sold to Baptists. Counsel submitted that the building in its state of disuse was rateable because it had ceased to be used as a church and had become an ordinary building. In reply, Mr. Glaister contended that the intention of the Legislature was that a building fallen into disrepair should not be subject to rating. Counsel instanced the ruins of old St. Thomas’s, Tamaki. The Legislature did not want to penalise a religious body for keeping a building which seemed to it valuable. His Honour: The building itself does its own preaching, so to speak. The court put forward the hj'pothetical case of a country church whose adherents met but rarely—say, once in six months, or a year. Was such a building rateable? Air. Johnstone argued that the Thames Church was finished with after the fire as far as the Congregationalists were concerned. It was an accident that the Baptists had decided to buy the building. j His Honour reserved his decision.