Page images
PDF
EPUB

annum, paying £100 a year for his house, should be assessed for the relief of the poor, and in rural districts for the Highways, Burial Board, and School Board rates on £100, and a farmer paying a rental of £500 per annum, and making a profit, say of £200, should be assessed on the £500.

JOHN GERMAN, Fellow.

SECTION III.

PROFESSIONAL QUERIES.

Enformation is sought on the following points ;

CCCXCIII.

APPRAISERS' LICENSES.

(For Replies to this Query, see p. 508.)

I was called in to value several properties for the last licensing sessions by the owners of the premises, and gave evidence before the magistrates on the licensing day to prove that the premises were over the minimum value stipulated in the Licensing Act. Such valuation was not required, nor was made, on stamped paper. Since then I have received a letter from the Excise Office inquiring whether I have an appraiser's license, and I have informed them that I have not. They have now sent me a notice to pay the license duty for an appraiser, viz. £2.

I should be glad to know:

(1) Whether the demand for this license is right?

(2) If so, is such a license restricted to valuations for Excise purposes and appraisments or valuations requiring stamped paper?

(3) Is such a license necessary for ordinary valuations for mortgages, sales of property by auction or privately, assessments for rating purposes, and for arbitrations under compulsory powers and otherwise?

(4) Is there any authority or case on the point? For 33 years I have been valuing such properties as those named above, and have never been asked to take out a license before. Several years ago an Act was passed, I believe, under which licenses were required by professional valuers, but in consequence of numerous representations made to the Government an exemption was made, and the licenses were limited to valuations made on stamped paper only.

66

In Ryde on Surveying, 1853, page 751, a case is given as follows: "The Stamp Acts do not apply to appraisments made merely for private information, but to such only as are intended to be binding "between two parties with opposing interests. Thus a valuation of "parish lands made by a farmer and basket-maker for the sidesmen "of the parish, with a view to the equalisation of the poor rate, has been "held not to require an appraisment stamp, and the farmer and basket"maker recovered compensation for their services, although they were not "licensed as appraisers." (Atkinson v. Fell, 5 Maule and Sel. 240.)

CCCXCIV.

BOUNDARY WALL-LIABILITY TO REPAIR.

(For Replies to this Query, see pp. 509, 510.)

A is owner of field adjoining a main road close to a county bridge; the level of the road for about 80 yards adjoining bridge is 4 feet 6 inches higher than the field, and is supported by a retaining wall. On the top of the retaining wall is another wall about 3 feet high, built presumably to prevent people from falling into the field. The county authorities admit their liability to repair the wall up to the level of the road, but not higher. Is it the duty of A to keep the 3-feet wall in repair?

[blocks in formation]

RIVER FLOODS-DAMAGE TO HIGH ROAD AND BRIDGE.

(For Replies to this Query, see pp. 510, 511.)

(A) A river, owing to successive floods, is gradually wearing away the land and changing its course, with the result that it is undermining the high road, which runs parallel to the river.

Is there any liability on the owner of the land through which the river runs to keep the river in its old course, and to prevent the high road being washed away?

(B) The high road is carried by a bridge over a river. At or before the time the present bridge was built (some sixty years ago) a weir was constructed immediately below the bridge; this weir has by the action of floods, which action is intensified by the scour caused by the confinement of the water to the narrow channel under the bridge, been damaged, and will probably shortly (if not repaired) be destroyed.

If the weir is destroyed, the water level under the bridge will be lowered about eight feet, and the probable result will be that the foundations of the bridge will be damaged.

Can the County Council claim a right of support to the bridge from the weir, and compel the landowner to repair the weir or pay for any damage caused to the bridge if the weir is destroyed; or, on the other hand, can the landowner claim damage from the County Council for the destruction of the weir occasioned (according to the opinion of engineers) by the scour caused by the bridge?

CCCXCVI.

GROUND GAME ACT-FARMS IN HAND-LANDLORD'S RIGHT TO SHOOT HARES.

(For Replies to this Query, see pp. 511, 512, 513.)

Has the owner of a landed estate, who has let for a term his mansion and shooting, any right under the Ground Game Act, as occupier of farms in hand, to depute his farm bailiff to destroy hares and rabbits?

Is not the right of killing hares and rabbits inseparable from the occupation, whether the landlord or a tenant be the occupier?

The case out of which these questions arise is that of a landlord who has planted various fields on the farms in hand with larch and other trees, which have suffered very much from the depredations of ground game.

CCCXCVII.

AGRICULTURAL TENANCY AGREEMENT-RIGHT TO SELL HAY AND

STRAW.

(For Replies to this Query, see pp. 513, 514.)

A tenant under his agreement has a right during and at the end of his tenancy to sell hay and straw. On quitting he claims, under the Agricultural Holdings Act, for foods and manures used.

The landlord claims, as a set-off, the manurial value of the hay and straw sold, relying on the words "except so far as a proper return has "been made." Is this right? and if so, is not the privilege to sell hay and straw discounted, and what advantage has he over the tenant who should not, under his agreement, sell this produce, but has done so wrongfully?

CCCXCVIII.

PUBLIC HEALTH ACT, 1875-LIABILITY OF FRONTAGERS FOR COST OF SEWERING.

(For Replies to this Query see p. 515.)

A road was formed and sewer laid (outside the metropolitan area) in 1857, and houses were erected facing it on one side only.

Quite recently the local authorities have re-laid the sewer at their own expense. The road should now be completed, kerbed, and channelled. Who is liable for the payment of the cost of such works? Should it fall on the local authorities or on the frontagers?

CCCXCIX.

RIPARIAN OWNERS-CLEARING BED OF STREAM.

(For Replies to this Query, see p. 516.)

What remedies, by statute or otherwise, has an owner or occupier of a farm bordering a stream against owners or occupiers of land lower down the stream, by whose default in not periodically cleansing the bed of accumulations of mud and vegetation the free drainage of the farm in question is impeded, and consequent damage caused?

CCCC.

TITHE RENT-CHARGE-LEASE FOR LIVES-RENEWAL-
ALTERATION OF RENT.

(For Replies to this Query, see pp. 517, 518.)

A lease for lives, at a low ground rent, granted before the passing of the Tithe Act, 1891, contains a clause of which the following is the substance:

66

"That from time to time

as often as the lessee shall nominate

a new life in lieu of any life which shall have dropped. . . . the "lessor will and shall at the request and expense of the lessee and on the "surrender by him . . . . of the then subsisting lease. . . . grant to him a new lease of the same premises for the term of 99 years, determinable

[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]

....

on the dropping of the life so nominated. . . . and also of such of the [other] lives. . . . if any then subsisting . . . . and such renewal "lease shall be at and under the same rent, heriots, covenants, provisoes, "and agreements as are reserved and contained in these presents."

The lease contains a covenant by the lessee to pay tithe rent-charge. The renewal arrangement is now come into operation.

Under these circumstances will the original covenant to pay tithe

« EelmineJätka »