“EASY MONEY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 722, 23 July 1929, Page 14

“EASY MONEY”

EXCESSIVE LEGAL FEES ALLEGED POWER BOARD CRITICISM “I don't know of any easier way of making money. It beats the totalisator,” said Mr. \V. J. Holdsworth, chairman of the Auckland Electric-Power Board, at yesterday‘s meeting, when legal fees came in for criticism. The opinion arose out of an account for £368 issued by a firm of \Vellington solicitors for perusing and verifying documents relating to the raising by the Auckland Power Board of a loan of £250,000 from the Australian Mutual Provident Society. It was decided to pay the account and to enter a protest against the high charges. Following on the authority given it to raise £675,000 for extension purposes, the Power Board entered into an agreement with the A.M.P. Society for a loan of £250,000, the necessary documents being drawn up by the board’s solicitors in Auckland, and forwarded to Wellington for perusal by the society’s solicitors, Messrs. Chapman, Tripp, Cooke and Watson, a condition of the loan being that the board should pay the legal expenses connected with the work of this firm. The charges were explained in a letter sent to the A.M.P. by Messrs. Chapman, Tripp, Cooke and Watson, and forwarded to the board. It was said that if the loan had been an ordinary one on mortgage, the fees would have totalled £672 if the title had been under the land transfer system and £696 if under the deeds system. These fees were prescribed by the conveyancing scale in force throughout New Zealand. It had been ascertained that the‘ Public Trust Oflice regulations provided for a charge of a per cent. on the amount of the loan. Therefore, the fee payable on a loan of a similar amount would have been £625. The solicitors to the National Mutual Insurance Association were stated to have adopted the scale for land transfer mortgages That association’s charge would be £672 for a. loan of £250,000. The solicitor to the Temperance and General Oifice had said his charges were taxed and allowed at £347 for a. loan of £200,000. He said he would charge £SOO in respect of a loan of £250,000. Messrs. Chapman, Tripp, Cooke and Watson added that their charge was, therefore, very reasonable when compared with other charges. “The firm has gone to length to show that if it had charged the union rates the fee would have been about £600," said Mr. Holdsworth. “The talk about the land transfer system is just so much ‘eye-wash.’ These people have simply thought of a figure and then doubled it. “The greatest trouble was borne by our own solicitors, who drew up the documents connected with the debentures. All that the Wellington solici~ tors had to do was to scrutinise the papers and see that all was right. Picking up sovereigns is hard work compared with what they had to do. In addition they'want to be paid before we get the money.” Mr. J. Rowe said there was only one man who could beat a lawyer for charges and that was a. plumber. “A plumber will charge for every conceivable thing on the job and then wind up by asking so much for spirits,” he said. “Of course, one is not supposed to know What spirits he means.” A letter from the board to the A.M.P. Society was read protesting against the high charges, and pointiing out that the board had never been charged so much on similar work in ithe past.