"PUT HIS ASSETS BEYOND REACH”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 137, 31 August 1927, Page 13

"PUT HIS ASSETS BEYOND REACH”

BANKRUPT IN COURT ASSIGNEE’S APPLICATION DISMISSED “Obsessed with the idea that he was being treated with harshness and injustice, it appears to me clear that he determined to put all his free assets beyond the reach of his mortgagees, and to denude himself of everything but the mortgaged property, in order to provide for the contingency of being forced into bankruptcy.” Mr. Justice Herdman expressed this opinion in the Supreme Court yesterday morning, in the course of a reserved judgment in the case of the Official Assignee (Mr. West) against Roland Darcy Mens (Mr. Hampson). The proceedings were taken by the official assignee for the purpose of impeaching certain transactions entered into by Mens, who was adjudicated a bankrupt on a creditor’s petition on December 17, 1926. The transactions impeached were the payment in June, 1925, by the bankrupt to his son, Reginald, a sum of ra rli rr ~\i fvr r!f fr rvr fr tr f t - -ft

£550, and a mortgage for £SOO over a property at Hamilton made on May 28, 1925, in favour of William Newall In his evidence the bankrupt said that he was a cabinet-maker for a time, and in 1918 he bought a farm for £5,650, of which he paid £650 in cash. He worked it until 1920, when he sold it for £8,700, receiving £1,200 cash. He took up residence in Hamilton, but in 1923 the purchaser of the farm abandoned it and bankrupt had to go back. Efforts for the extension of the mortgage proved fruitless. In 1925 he executed in favour of his brother-in-law, William Newall, a second mortgage over his Hamilton property, and in the same month ho sold a property to an old friend for £1 000. which was considerably below its value. In the same year he gave his son £550 and this was contended by the official assignee to be a si am, there being no money due from the bankrupt to his son. His Honour ordered that the and purchased with the money be transferred to the official assignee, as it was impressed with a trust.

In the matter of the mortgage, his Honour held that it was given to Newall good consideration, and could not now be impeached. The motion would be dismissed.