This Act may be cited as the Rating Amendment Act, 1913, and shall form part of and be read together with the Rating Act, 1908 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

Section two of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the definitions of “improvements,” “unimproved value,” and “value of improvements,” and substituting the following definitions respectively:—

The said section two is hereby further amended by inserting in the definition of exceptions from “rateable property,” after paragraph (k), the following paragraph:—

Section four of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding the following subsections:—

The principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the word “March,” and substituting therefor the word “February,” wherever the first-mentioned word occurs in sections thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, and forty-six, and in the forms numbered (3) and (4) respectively in the Second Schedule.

Section fifty of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting the word “rate-book,” and substituting the words “valuation roll.”

Section fifty-three of the principal Act is hereby amended by adding thereto the following subsection:—

Subsection one of section twenty-nine of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, is hereby amended by inserting, after the word “shall,” the words “in the absence of any agreement to the contrary made between the Councils of the uniting boroughs.”

Notwithstanding the repeal of section one hundred and three of the principal Act by the Rating Amendment Act, 1911, that section shall continue in force in any district in which the system of rating on the unimproved value was in force on the commencement of the Rating Amendment Act, 1911, until the proposal mentioned in subsection two of section two of that Act has been carried at a poll taken pursuant to that subsection.

Any number of areas (whether contiguous or not) of Native freehold land within the district of one local authority which are vested in the same Trustee shall, if the beneficial owners of all such areas are identical, be collectively liable for all rates levied by such local authority in respect of each such area respectively.

The Trustee shall pay all rates levied upon such areas out of the net revenues received by him from any one or more of such areas.

The net revenues received by the Trustee in any year from all such areas may be applied in payment of rates levied in previous years, provided that no such payment shall be made by the Trustee in respect of rates which have been in arrear for a period exceeding four years. This subsection shall not be construed as enabling a Trustee to apply the revenues of the land held upon trust in payment of rates levied in respect thereof which were unpaid and in arrear on the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and thirteen.

The Trustee shall only be liable for such rates to the extent of the net revenues actually received by the Trustee from all such areas.

This section is in substitution for section four of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, and that section is hereby accordingly repealed.

Section six of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, is hereby amended by inserting, before the words “in actual occupation,” the words “during any part of the year for which a rate is made or during which a special rate is payable”; and by adding at the end of the said section the following subsections:—

Section seven of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, is hereby amended by adding thereto the following subsections:—

Section thirteen of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, is hereby amended by omitting the word “three,” and substituting the word “four.”

Section fourteen of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, is hereby amended by omitting from subsection one the words “against the owner or owners of any Native land for rates due in respect thereof,” and substituting the words “for rates due in respect of any Native land.”

If rates levied in respect of any area of Native land remain in arrear and unpaid for a period exceeding nine months after the date when the same first became payable, the local authority to which such rates are due may cause to be registered against the land at the office of the Registrar of Deeds or of the District Land Registrar, as the case may be, a lien in the prescribed form.

On payment of any rates in respect of which a lien or charge has been registered any person authorized by the local authority to receive payment of such rates shall, if requested so to do by the person paying such rates, execute an assignment of such lien or charge; and such assignment shall, upon registration thereof, operate to vest in the person named therein as the assignee all the rights conferred on the original holder of such lien or charge by the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, and this Act; and such assignment if duly attested shall be registrable under the Land Transfer Act, 1908, or the Deeds Registration Act, 1908, as the case may be.

Whenever any lien shall be registered under this section the local authority shall, as soon as practicable, cause notice of such registration to be published in the Kahiti, and a copy of such notice to be posted addressed to the nominated owners.

No alienation or other disposition of Native land which is subject to a charge registered under section fourteen of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, or to a lien registered under this Act, shall be registered by the District Land Registrar or the Registrar of Deeds, as the case may be, until the registration of such charge or lien has been duly cancelled pursuant to the said section, except with the consent of the person entitled for the time being to the benefit of such lien or charge:

Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to the registration of any alienation or other disposition of such land pursuant to the provisions of section fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910.

The provisions of Part XII or of Part XIII of the Native Land Act, 1909, shall not apply in the case of any alienation effected by a Maori Land Board or the Public Trustee acting under section fifteen or section seventeen of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, or in the case of an alienation effected by a Receiver acting under section sixteen of the said Act.

Notwithstanding anything in the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, Native freehold land held in severalty shall for the purposes of the principal Act be deemed to be European land, and the provisions of the said Act shall apply thereto accordingly.

Where any owner of Native freehold land owned in common has obtained an order on partition in respect of his share or interest therein, and has paid his proportion of the rates payable in respect of the whole of the land so partitioned, any charge or lien registered under section fourteen of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, or this Act, shall be deemed to be discharged in so far as it effects the said share or interest.

The Governor in Council may make all such regulations and prescribe all such forms as may be deemed expedient for the purpose of enabling effect to be given to the provisions of the Rating Amendment Act, 1910, and of this Act.