DISPOSAL OF HOTEL

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22514, 23 September 1938, Page 8

DISPOSAL OF HOTEL

COMMISSION PAYABLE FROM ESTATE

SALE CARRIED THROUGH

BY EXECUTORS

The commission payable on an hotel sale, made by the administrators of the estate which owned the hotel, was determined by his Honour Mr Justice Northcroft in a reserved judgment announced yesterday. The administrators in the estate of James McCormack had petitioned under the Administration Act for commission, and the matter had been referred to the registrar,- on whose report a motion for review was based. The only matter" challenged in the registrar’s report by the petitioners, Robert Louis McCormack and others, was an allowance of £l5O as remuneration on the realisation of the Leeston Hotel property. At the testator’s death the property was valued, states the judgment, _at much less than the amount for which it was eventually sold. The hotel was sold for £23,000, and originally remuneration was asked for at the rate of 5 per cent, of this figure. On the hearing before the registrar this claim was not seriously pressed, but it was urged that £637 10s be paid, the amount which would have gone to a broker had one been employed. The registrar did not accept this claim, and made an assessment of £l5O to be paid to One executor. His Honour held that the remuneration should not be calculated by reference alone to the services of the solicitor executor, but should have regard to the services of all three executors. The two other executors, his Honour held, had exercised a beneficial.influence on the sale of the hotel at so good a price. “I have gone carefully through the history of the administration, on the material that was before the registrar,’’ added his Honour’s judgment, "and I am not disposed to dissent from his assessment of £l5O for the one executor. However, I think a similar sum should be allowed in respect of the other executors, so that the total amount to be received by the executors in a body should be £450 and not £l5O, as computed by the registrar.” Mr M. J. Gresson appeared in support of the petition, and it Was opposed by Mr E. T. Layburn.