Land Settlement (Facilities) Act 1919

11 Duties of county councils with respect to sale or lease of land

(1) Land acquired by a county council under the principal Act shall be sold or let by the council at the best price or sum that can reasonably be obtained, and, where sold or let for small holdings, be sold or let, except where the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for any special reason otherwise direct, subject to a reservation of all minerals vested in the council.

(2) Where land is sold for small holdings at any time before the first day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-six, the sale shall only be made subject to the approval of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.

(3) A tenant of a holding provided by a county council on land purchased by the council, who has been in occupation thereof for a period of not less than six years, shall, on notice of his desire to purchase the holding being given to the council at any time before the tenant has received notice to quit the holding, be entitled to require the sale to him of the holding at the expiration of one month from the date of the notice at the then value of the holding, exclusive of any increase of the value thereof due to any improvement executed thereon by and at the expense of the tenant, and thereupon the council shall sell the holding to the tenant accordingly unless the council obtain the consent of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to the requirement of the tenant being refused by the council.

(4) The value of the holding shall in default of agreement be determined by arbitration under and in accordance with the provisions of the Second Schedule to the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908.

(5) A council may, by order in relation to sales of small holdings provided by the council which are made while the order is in force, extend .the term within which the purchase money is required by subsection (5) of section eleven of the principal Act to be repaid, but so that the term shall not exceed sixty years : Provided that any order made under this subsection before the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and twenty-six, shall require the approval of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Treasury.

(6) Subsection (3) of section eleven of the principal Act (which required the payment on completion of the purchase of a small holding of not less than one-fifth of the purchase money) is hereby repealed, and, unless the purchaser desires to pay on completion of the purchase or at any subsequent time the whole or part of the purchase money, the whole of the purchase money shall be secured as provided by section eleven, subsection (5) of the principal Act as amended by this Act.

(7) A council, when selling or letting a small holding at any time before the expiration of two years after the passing of this Act, shall give preference to suitable men who have served at any time in the forces of the Crown and to suitable women who are certified by the Board to have been engaged in whole-time employment on agricultural work for a period of not less than six months during the present war.