NO ADOPTION PROOF

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 738, 10 August 1929, Page 1

NO ADOPTION PROOF

ESTATE CLAIMANT IN ODD POSITION BOTH PARENTS DEAD An adopted son’s difficulties in establishing claim on his father’s estate, valued at between £2,000 and £3,000, were indicated during the hearing by Mr. Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court yesterday, of an originating summons for the interpretation of the will of John Carr King, who died in 1911.

Mr. Wilkin, representing the New Zealand Insurance Company, whjch is trustee in the estate, explained the testator had left his wife the residue of the estate for her lifetime. The adopted son, William John Carr King, was granted the Avondale homestead and a nursery there. Careful provision had been made should the son pre-decease the wife, but no stipulation was made if the son outlived his mother. It happened that Mrs. King died first, and counsel considered that a paragraph providing for this contingency had been left out of the will. The son’s adoption was the main point at issue, counsel continued. The son was adopted' in infancy by the late Mr. and Mrs. King in 1877. four years before the Adoption of Children Act came Into force, but it was impossible to obtain records of the adoption as there was no magistrate’s court record book for 10 years from 1881. Apart from this the lawyer and the clerk, who had conducted testator’s affairs, were now dead.

After Mr. W. G. Fletcher, secretary of the District Law Society, at the invitation of the court, expressed the opinion that record of the adoption might be found filed with the Commissioner of Stamps, Wellington, the hearing was adjourned, to ascertain if information could be obtained from that quarter.