THE SALE OF LAND FOR RATES.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 366, 8 May 1889, Page 5

THE SALE OF LAND FOR RATES.

SiN'Ci: the appearance of our article on this subject we have received a number of com. munications showing the extent to which the local bodies are abusing the power of sale which is conferred upon them under the Rating Act. In another column to-day a well-known citizen writing under the signature ot "Taxpayer" narrates his experience. There should certainly have been no difficulty in finding out the owner in his case, and as a matter of fact the Registrar of the Supreme Court did \cry soon find him out, but only, as appears from his letter, after heavy costs had been heaped needlessly upon the trivial amount that was due for rates. The ease with which the Registrar finds out owners ot lands against which judgment has been obtained without personal notice or service of summons, is a noticeable feature of these proceedings, and we should like to be informed what evidence of reasonable inquiry for an owner the magistrates who hear these cases require before accepting notice served on the land as a sufficient service. Most certainly the local body ought to have made search at the office of the Registrar of Deejds to ascertain the name ot the present owner, but apparently this is rarely done, although search may be made without fee, and the officers of the department invariably lend all possible assistance to country collectors who apply. Not only, however, is it true that local bodies before taking the extreme step of proceeding against the land do not search the title, but it is also evident from cases which have been brought under our notice that the collectors of County Councils sometimes do not even take the trouble to inquire from the Highway Boards in which a property in arrears is situated whether the owner is known to them and has paid his highway rates. In one case quoted in a former article the land had actually been sold for rates by the Highway Board only five months before the County Council proceeded on a similar process, and there could have been no difficulty in finding the new purchaser if any inquiry had been made. ]n another case, we have been shown a notice of sale from the Registrar with regard to lots 99, 101, and 102, part of lot 31 Parish of Matakohe, in which judgment had been obtained by the Otamatea County Council as against an owner who could not be found, and yet the whole of the highway rates had been paid up to the 21st of August, IFBB, and the owner held the collector's receipt for that payment. Not merely was the Registrar of the Supreme Court able to find the owner of this block by the very reasonable and extremely simple process of inquiring at the Deeds Office and then dropping a notice addressed to him in the post-office, but the collector of th& Matakohe Road Boai'd would doubtless have informed the clerk of the County Council where to send his notice if he had been asked. The number of oases in which the compulsory sale provisions of the Rating Act have been used in a manner that was not contemplated by Jtarliament is so great, and the practice has become such a flagrant public evil, that steps must bo taken to curb the powers of those bodies. We believe that the Registrar of Deeds at Auckland, fearing that actions for damages' may" arise ouli of some of these salos, will not issuo land transfer titles with respect to them, and it is' evident that the law is altogether' in a very unsatisfactory qon-

dition. As we have .stated,* before/ we should have no compunction ab all in supporting the compulsory sale of land locked up in bhe hands of genuine absenbees, whose whereabouts, cannot be found, and who neither pay rates nor improve the land ; bub safeguards must be provided against i'the abuse ot the power by its application ■to owners who could easily be tfound if any proper effort- were made to discover them. If the Act had required that in every case one month < before the service.* of any summons upon the land, a notice showing the amount of rates due must have been posted to the person whose name appears at the Deeds Registration Office as the owner of the property, many of the cases of hard&hip to which reference has lately been made would never have arisen. — " Auckland Star," May 3.