THE RATING ACT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 232, 19 February 1913, Page 5

THE RATING ACT.

INTERESTING TEST CASE. By Telegraph —Press Association. Wellington, Last iVight. A test case concerning rates was brought before Mr. Justice Chapman at the Supreme Court this morning, on a summons removed from the Magistrate's Court. The plaiiitiU' was the Welling l * ton City Corporation and the defendants were Hamilton Gilmer, M.L.C., Allien Maguire, settler, John O'Kane, clerk, Charles Perrin Skerrett, K.C., solicitor, and Mary Ann Mardle, settler, all of Wellington. The defendants, it was set put in the statement of claim, are owners of the Trocadero Private Hotel, upo'a which the sum of £M) 13s lOd is due for electric heat, light, and power supplied pursuant to the provisions of the Rating Act, 1008. The City Council on Juno 1, 1912, demanded 1 this amount which it was claimed was recoverable as a separate rate from the owners of the property. The demand was not complicl with, and action was taken to recover the amount as a separate rate. Sir John Findlay stated the question for the Court was, whether a municipal corporation which owns or controls gas or electric light supplv is entitled to recover (under the Hating l Act) from a landlord, as a separate rate, the price of gas or electrical energy consumed bv a tenant for light, heat, or power, when, the tenant had failed to pay? Mr. O'Shea, eifv solicitor, contended that under the Municipal Corporations' Act and the Rating Act, the Council possessed power (o enforce this as a separate rate against the landlord, and the amount was recoverable in the same way as the other rates. Decision was reserved.