HOTEL ARCADIA & LAND DEAL.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1619, 10 December 1912, Page 8

HOTEL ARCADIA & LAND DEAL.

"A T 0 MOi\EST WAS TO PASS." ' (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Auckland,- December 9. Judgment was given in the Supreme Court this morning in the Waikato land case, Reeves v. Coles, claiming for specific performance of . an •igTcement to sell; -or .£3242 as damages; Plaintiff is a Wellington land agent, and defendant u dairy farmer in the Waikato..' -- The defendant, by agreement dated June 4, agreed to transfer his farm of 430 acres in return for a second mortgage of ,£(55G3 over the Arcadia Hotel in Wellington. No money was to pass. Coles contended that the agreement was not •sufficiently completed. The land was not sufficiently described to satisfy the statute of fraud that the transfer was subject to approval by Coles, sen.,- who was said to have a pecuniary interest in the farm. When the was- being heard, the defence was amended, and defendant pleaded that the agreement was subject to his, being satisfied with the Arcadia Hotel mortgage. , „ Mr. Justice Cooper decided in favour of plaintiff on all points' except the last the defence to which he thought had not been taken till the last moment. It had been satisfactorily proved that it was, highly improbable that Coles would hnvG acccpt* ed a mortgage of which he liad no knowledge in another part of' the Dominion without some such stipulation as was judgment was entered for the defendant with costs on the highest scale, and . the nlaintiff was allowed twenty-five guineas in respect of the defence upon which defendant'. had failed.