TRUSTEE IN BANKRUPTCY ESTATES.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1126, 17 December 1883, Page 2

TRUSTEE IN BANKRUPTCY ESTATES.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir, —Will you kindly give me spnce for a few lines on a subject which interests creditors of a bankrupt estate. I understand there is great canvassing going on amongst the commission agents to obtain the office of Trustee in T, & A. Haywood’s estate. Now Sir, the question is: have these men got the interests of their townsmen, wlio are heavy losers, at heart ? or are they seeking to obtain this office for the purpose of what they can get out of the poor creditors who have already given their goods and money away in this estate ? It is not the debtor who loses by these commission agents and lawyers’, as the estate has to pay all their costs in full (or in other words it is the creditors who pay), and therefore, there is not the slightest attempt made to work the estate cheaply, with the big view in end, viz., of getting as large a dividend for the “ creditors” as is possible.

I submit Sir, the proper men to wind up such an estate as T. & A. Haywood’s are some of the largest creditors themselves. I would suggest that at least two creditors be appointed Trustees, and have nothing at. nil to do with these commission agents, who are in my opinion very inexperienced in such matters ; moreover, I have heard it said that if more than one Trustee were appointed they would not act. On the face of this does it not show that it is selfishness on their part ns the commission would have to be divided ?

I notice in the assigned estate of F. O’S. McCarthy that the three largest creditors nro appointed trustees, and I warrant to say, sir, that if there is anything in the estate these men will realize it, an I why so ? Simply because they are working for themselves.

I would simply qualify my suggestion re commission agents as trustees, viz, that if they are largely interested personally, (not by proxy) in the estate let them have a show as a creditor of being a trustee, ns then creditors’ interests and theirs are identical.—Yours &c,, Victim.