LOST £40,000 EQUITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 731, 2 August 1929, Page 10

LOST £40,000 EQUITY

FARMER’S CHANGING FORTUNES BECAME BANKRUPT From having an equity on one of his farm properties worth £40,000, a Hikutaia farmer’s position became so bad that he was forced to file in bankruptcy. CJHARLES ALFRED HOPPING, the bankrupt, met his creditors iu Auckland this afternoon, and attributed his failure to non-payment from tenants. He could not pay interest on mortgages and extensive holdings eventually fell into the hands of mortgagees. In his statement, Hopping said that he invested £14,000 in farm properties in the Thames district in 1916. In 1922 he held 510 acres at Thames Coast, subject to mortgages reaching £4,000, 425 acres at Kopu subject to £5,000 in mortgages, and 150 acres at Hikutaia subject to £4,000 in mortgages. He had sold 1,190 acres at Nether- ] ton at an average of £55 an acre. i The mortgages there reached £24,000, ! and his equity at the time was worth I not less than £40,000. Owing to a! drop in butter-fat prices, his Netherton tenants could not keep up payments, and he was not able to meet the interest due on mortgages. Mortgagees sold Kopu properties in De cember, 1924, and Netherton a month later. His equity disappeared, and as he had no iqcome he had to transfer the Thames Coast and the Hikutaia farms to the mortgagees as settlement. The Netherton tenants then owed him £2,000 for rent of interest, but three went bankrupt, and one abandoned hm farm. Since 1925 he had been living on his wife's property. His reason for filing was that a'creditor had issued a judgment summons, and had obtained an order for imprisonment. Bankrupt owed £385 to unsecured creditors. From £1,206 in book debts, £SOO was expected, and the surplus on his estate was £lls Under examination by the acting official assignee, Mr. V. R. Crowhurst, Hopping said he had not incurred any debt since 1925. Mr. Crowhurst commented that the point was in Hopping s favour. .. A . recommendation was approved that Hopping’s affairs should he left in the assignee’s hands.