FIVE-YEAR DISPUTE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 703, 1 July 1929, Page 10

FIVE-YEAR DISPUTE

REASSESSMENT OF LEASE OF MUD-FLAT SUGAR COMPANY’S CASE The unimproved value of the Colonial Sugar Company’s interest in respect to the leasehold of a tidal mud fiat at Chelsea was fixed at £IOO by the Assessment Court which sat at Auckland this morning. J. G. L. HEWITT. S.M., presided, and associated with him were Messrs. Ebenezer Allan and E. C. Walton. This valuation case has in various forms, extended over a period of five years, and several points raised have been the subject of Supreme Court rulings by Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Blair.

A feature of the proceedings has been the dissent of the president of the Assessment Court from the decision of the assessors, representing the Valuation Department and the Birkenhead Borough, concerning a reduction to only £1.500 from the previous decision of £1.660. The company successfully appealed against this, and in his judgment of May 1 last, Mr. Justice Blair remitted the case back to the Assessment Court “for reassessment on the evidence already given, with a direction from this court to reassess at such sum as they think fit, not exceeding the maximum valuation given by any valuer called on behalf of the appellant company.” At the court proceedings, in giving evidence. Mr. H. E. Vaile assessed the total unimproved value as a freehold at £6OO and as a leasehold at £3OO. His Honour concluded that as the utmost value placed upon the leasehold interest of the company by any of the valuers was £3OO, the assessors in fixing the value at £1,500 “must have disregarded the only evidence before them.” •‘PURELY NOMINAL SUM” Mr. H. P. Richmond, who appeared for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company this morning, said that Mr. Vaile was seeking to show that the unimproved value of the property must be looked at as less than the freehold value because the Harbour Board could only deal with it under statutory forms of leases. Mr. Richmond said that Mr. Vaile did not mean that the Colonial Sugar Company’s interest in the leasehold over and above the rent paid by it was £3OO. That was shown by the fact that Mr. Vaile’s value of unrestricted freehold was only £6OO and by the fact that the company only had seven and a-half years to run. On those figures, Mr. Richmond said, the value of the company's interest in the leasehold could be arrived at on a percentage basis and could not amount to £3OO. Mr. W r . Vallance watched proceedings on behalf of the Birkenhead Borough Council. In giving the court's decision. Mr. Hewitt said that, the assessors not having agreed, he had fixed £IOO as a purely nominal sum. The owners interests were to stand.