ASSESSMENT COURT.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1069, 3 April 1882, Page 2

ASSESSMENT COURT.

Saturday, April 2nd, 1882.

(Before Mr Revell, R.M.) This Court sat on Saturday last. Mr Lynch appeared to support the valuation.

John Dick, baker, Broadway, assessed at £26. Reduced to £13. M. Williams, Fern Flat, assessed at £120. Reduced to £100.

Angus Campbell, Southern Cross Hotel, Broadway. Mr Jones appeared for the appellant. In this case appellant's property was valued at £125 per annum. In support of the assessment, Mr Heslop, the valuer, said that it was one of the cleanest and best kept houses in Reefton, and would readily let at £3 per week. Mr Jones, on the other hand, showed that it required new roof and piles, and that it had never before been rated at more than £100 a year. The valuation was reduced to £100.

John Dawson, hotel, Broadway, valuation, £300 ; garden, Shiels-street, £26 ; three acres on town boundary, £13 ; Kelly's hotel, £104; garden, £26. In support of the first item, the assessor said the hotel would be worth a great deal more than that. The other properties he also thought were rated below their value.

In reply to Mr Jones, Mr Heslop said that he thought the unfinished structure worth the valuation he had put on it.

Mr Harold, County Clerk, was called, and proved that Dawson's Hotel and Hall were last year rated at £208 ; one garden at £18 ; the 3 acres at £10 ; the second garden at LlO, and Kelly's hotel at LIOO.

Mr Dawson said that the piles and frames of the hotel only were up on the 13th February when the valuation was made, and the building was not possibly habitable. With respect to Kelly's hotel, he had offered to let it before the fire for 30s. per week, and could not get it. Last year his hotel and Hall were only rated at L2OB, and now the unfinished house alone was valued at L3OO. He could not see how he could be rated for a thing that was actually not in existence.

The Magistrate said that the building was not finished at the time the valuation (of the new hotel) was made. It was the duty of the assessor to set down the annual value of the property at the time of the valuation being made. The building might be unfinished for six or even twelve months, and it was absurd to put a prospective value on it. He added there was j no right whatever to put a prospective value on it for the purpose of revenue. In twelve months time, when the property had been improved, the valuator would make the valuation accordingly. The valuation should have been made in January, instead of February, and should have been made on the building as it stood then.

Mr Jones said his worship had raised the very point that he was about to raise as to attaching prospective value to the unfinished building. It was the value o* all property at the time the valuations were made that should be alone considered, and the place was not finished even yet.

The Magistrate reduced the valuations as follows : — Dawson's new hotel, £100 ; Kelly's hotel, L 10 4; Gardens each L 1 8; Land LlO, being a reduction on the whole of L 219, W. G. Ceilings, shop in Broadway, valuation LSO ; reduced to L2O. Cottage Broadway, valuation L 26, reduced to L2O antonio's riding. Robert Me eil, 400 acres under agricultural lease ; 2,000 acres pastoral, valu. ation L2GO ; reduced to L2OO. MURRAY RIDING. Mary Williams, All Nations hotel, Black's Point, valuation LSO ; reduced to L2O. This concluded the business of the Court.