"MONUMENTAL BLUFF."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 36, 12 February 1929, Page 9

"MONUMENTAL BLUFF."

DEBTOR'S SECOND CROP.

COMMENT ON BANKRUPT.

CREDITORS HEATED AT MEETING.

MAY BE PUBLIC EXAMINATION.

"You have not made one truthful statement, and the whole of your misrepresentations have been simply a tissue of fraud."

This comment was made by a creditor at a meeting held before the Official Assignee (Mr. G. N. Morris) this morning to inquire into the affairs of a bankrupt agent, Andrew Joseph Farmer, of Ponsonby.

Bankrupt's schedule showed liabilities of £809 to unsecured and £800 to secured creditors. The estimated value of the securities was £1500, leaving a surplus of securities and assets of £700. The deficiency in the estate was set down as £109. The property held by hankrupt consisted of six acres and a five-roomed house in Bon Accord Harbour, Kawau Island, subject to a mortgage of £800. As a member of a syndicate of five, bankrupt stated he had entered into a purchase of 040 acres on Kawau, on which there were thousand of tons of tea-tree suitable for firewood. After a time the property was divided into onettfth shares, of which bankrupt received one.

A previous adjudication as a bankrupt had been made against A. J. Farmer in July, 1922, and he was discharged in July, 1927.

A Wotthless Schedule. "It is amazing to find in 18 months he has a second crop of creditors all as dissatisfied as the first," said Mr. Morris, at the conclusion of the meeting. The schedule is absolutely worthless. It has not disclosed his liabilities and assets, and I don't feel at all sympathetic toward him."

"I knew this man would try to wriggle out of his bankruptcy and make statements to his creditors which were entirely untrue," said a small creditor in the estate, when the bankrupt endeavoured to represent $hat he had options over property, and also over tea-tree and shingle on Kawau Island.

An involved discussion took place in regard to the options, land titles, mortgages and various dealings in which bankrupt had been concerned.

Another creditor commented that the bankrupt appeared to be a very poor business man and a third said he had judgment against the bankrupt and his wife for £50. A fourth said he had made payments to bankrupt for land which he had represented he owned and although he paid a considerable sum of money, he never got the lease.

A Creditor (heatedly): Your name stinks down at Kawau and you know it. He told me the other day he had six months to live. I told him he wouldn't have six seconds if I had my way.

Another Creditor: There is fraud sticking out in every proceeding. The whole of the transactions Farmer has entered into seem to have been carried out with monumental bluff, which only a schemer like this man would be capable of.

"Making Money Out of Creditors."

After further examination in regard to various options which bankrupt said he had secured, a creditor submitted the only way to get the facts was by a public examination.

"I know positively you have been going on in this way, making money out of your creditors," said another creditor.

A Third Creditor: You have definitely borrowed money on the representation that you were to receive money under a will, and you have stated it was at your solicitor's office, but all the time you had no anticipation of receiving anything of the kind.

The Official Assignee ordered the bankrupt to produce all documents in relation to any property whatever, whether that of his wife or himself, in which he had been interested.

Numerous references were made by the creditors to the bankrupt's conduct and his representations when desiring to borrow money.

Mr. Morris said he had been told the same story about the options when bankrupt was in his office yesterday, and Farmer had told him that if lie were given thirty days he expected to be able to satisfy his creditors. Several creditors said that bankrupt had named the day and the hour on which he would satisfy them and that he had always failed to fulfil his promises.

A resolution was passed instructing the Official Assignee to take steps to have the bankrupt publicly examined.