100 acres of Nelson town (not 110 acres which would be a true tenth) and 5,000 acres in the Moutere, Motueka and Mārahau districts (not 5,500 acres – a true tenth) were selected as Tenths Reserves. The Rural Tenths were never allocated, leaving the Tenths Reserves estate short by 10,000 acres, and despite a Māori population of 500 at Motueka, no Māori habitations, cultivations or special places were exempted from the surveys there.

Eventually 1,700 acres of Tenths Reserves at Motueka and Mārahau was redesignated Occupation Reserves to provide habitations and cultivations for resident Māori, 47 acres was taken for a remodelling of Nelson town in 1847, 429 acres was taken in 1853 for an Anglican school at Motueka, 85 acres was lost to public works, streets and roads, and 1,145 acres was sold by the Māori Trustee when a 1967 Act allowed lessees to freehold, leaving less than 2,000 acres of the 15,100 acres of Tenths Reserves promised by the New Zealand Company and decreed by William Spain.

European-dominated NZ Governments in the 1880s and 1890s enacted legislation allowing lessees rights of perpetual renewal and 21-year rent reviews which alienated the Tenths from the Māori owners and severely restricted the income arising from the Reserves. Government-appointed administrators used income from the Tenths in whatever manner they believed to be for the “benefit” of the vendors and their successors up until 1897; from then until 1956 a partial distribution of income from the Tenths was made to those entitled.