The purpose of public consultations on the review of state land rental assessment is to reveal land which has remained unvalued.

Ministry of Lands and Mineral Resources deputy director Malakai Nalawa said this in Tavua yesterday.

“That’s the whole purpose of this consultation; we have missed some land reassessment, but it’s only for non–agricultural State leases” he said.

“Agricultural leases are already covered under ALTA (Agricultural and Landlord Tenants Act ), based on six per cent of the UCV (undeveloped capital value), which is already set however in this new proposal we want to use the market rental to bring it up such as industrial, commercial, light industrial or whatever use other than agriculture.”

He said for this reason, a team is usually sent out to do a sale analysis in terms of all the State leases in a specific locality; even minor details such as what has been upgraded by previous leaseholders and landlords.

“We also look at the price of properties, capital market value of the property that includes land and improvement and building structures.

“Rental reassessment should occur every five, ten or 25- year cycles. For the old State  lease the rental reassessment used to be set at ten or  25 years so if you miss ten years they will continue to pay the old rent, they (tenants) are benefiting but for the landlord that’s unfair.”

Mr Nalawa said talks were in place to try and include in regulations the possibility of rental reassessment despite missing the reassessment cycle period.

“We want to set the rental market mark at a certain level otherwise it will come to a point where the whole market property is not truly reflecting the market value of the land,” he said.

“The undeveloped capital value is based on the unimproved value of the land that’s what is negotiated with the leaseholders whether to pay a lower rent amount or maintain the previous amount they usually pay.”

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