Agent's Commission For Sale of House

Chronicle (Levin), 18 February 1949, Page 2

Agent's Commission For Sale of House

• •' • AUCKLAND; Fel). 17. Thc setpiel'to the'sale of a house and land' 'last 'Ma v, -in whieh the purehaser agreed to pay the land+?i|'e\Tt^M"fnis-s sion, was the- appearance oi ..Fdwin Sayes, land agent," before Mr. Morling, B.M.p^oday,- eharged with - a breaeli oi Delendan't denied a charge tlkt,. as agent for the sale and purchase |f a ^property, he attempted to induce the purehaser to mahe a secret payment of £75 as commission to hiiuself so^that the vendor would rcceive the full Land [ Saies Court priee of £2(500 without paying the. agent's commission. Tlie purehaser, Walter JNIaitland Gordon Middleton, estate agent, said that after signing the Land Saies ( oui't- application forms in defendant's oliiee m May, he signed an agreemeut to pa.v defendant £75 commission. The faet that he was paying the eommission was not disclosed at the Land Saies Court hearing. Mr. Ilenry, 'for defendant, said the charge did not contain any elements of the ollences created by the statute. There was no proof of anything done by defendant in contraventiou of thc Act or proof of his iutent. There was no .seetion in the Act making it an offence to enter into in agreemeut for the purehaser to'pky the commission and this praetic.e was prevalent in Auckland. There was 110 secrecy about the commission agreement aud tlie. faet tliat it was not disclosed to thc Land Saies Court was not defendant's fault. It eould not be said defendant devised a docunient for the express putpose of defeating the objects of tlm Land Saies Court, said the Magistraie when dismissing the eharge. ' ' Defendant dropped out of thc. pieture aftei j thc agreement was signed and 1 am unable to find lie did anything with tlie objeet of contravening the Act.