LOANS DISPUTED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 675, 29 May 1929, Page 13

LOANS DISPUTED

ESTATES OF PARENTS FAMILY PROBLEM SOLVED Can an administrator. acting for botli his father’s and mother’s estate, admit a debt as between the two estates. as a result of which he would benefit? This issue was raised before Mr. Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court yesterday. Mrs. A. S. Lusher and Mrs. Cully (Mr. Chalmers) proceeded against Robert .T. Lusher (Mr. Terry), administrator of his father’s estate and one of the executors.- of. his mother’s will, under an originating summons claiming that a debt of £979 should not bo admitted against the father’s estate. The principal issue was whether defendant’s mother, who had a life tenancy in her husband’s estate, had paid calls amounting to £979 on New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company s shares out of her estate, and whether these payments were loans or gifts. Evidence by the defendant showed that the 200 £9 shares in his father’s estate were valueless when his father died, and his mother had paid the £» calls on them out of her estate to protect her interests. The money was advanced as loans. His Honour expressed lumselt satisfied that the advances made by Mrs. Georgianna Lusher to meet calls on the shares were loans, not gifts. He accordingly, entered judgment against the defendant as the sole surviving administrator in his father’s estate for £979 due as a debt to lus mother s estate. ■