LAND SALES ACT CHARGES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25245, 25 July 1947, Page 4

LAND SALES ACT CHARGES

PRICES OF ADJACENT FARMS

COURT’S DISTRIBUTION OF PENALTIES

(PA.) WHANGAREI, July 24. Two Waipapa farmers. Walter Henry Knight and Robert Jurisich, were separately charged in the Magistrate’s Court at Kaikohe to-day with having received large sums in excess of the Land Sales Committee’s decisions on. the sale of their properties. .. In Knight’s case the amount quoted in the charge was £797, but this was altered to £706 8s 9d, after evidence had been presented showing certain permissible payments. fa Jurisich’s case the excess charged was £450, and this figure was reduced for similar reasons to £432 18s 9d.

Knight was fined £7lO, and it was directed that £7OB should go to Jurisich. Jurisich was fined £458, of which it was directed that £405 should be refunded to a third party, McKinnel.

It was explained that the prosecutions arose out of a sale last winter of two neighbouring farms. Knight sold to Jurisich and Jurisich sold to McKinnel. McKinnel wanted possession by July 2, and this was effected by Knight granting early gossession to Jurisich, although the Land ales Committee hearing did not open until early in August. McKinnel paid in cash to Jurisich the full agreed sale price of £2185, representing £35 an acre, while Jurisich paid to Knight the full amount (over and above mortgages) of the agreed price of £3657, which was £4O an acre. The Land Sales Committee, however, reduced the price of Knight’s property to £2860, and of Jurisich’s property to £1735. Some months later McKinnel’s solicitors wrote to Jurisich requesting a refund ot the difference between the Land Sales Committee price and the contractual prices —£4so. Jurisich, who stated in evidence that he had already heavily indebted himself, could not find the money, and requested the difference in the two prices for Knight’s former farm. Knight declined to refund, and police investigations were started by Detective-Sergeant J. B. Finlay, of Whangarei. Prosecuting. Detective-Sergeant Finlay referred to the over-payments as having been “under the lap payments.’’ Comment by Counsel Mr J. H. Rose, or Auckland, who appeared for Knight, said Knight had improved his farm until it was one of the best in the north, capable of producing at the present time 10,0001 b of butter-fat. He contended that the offence of Knight rested on his failure to refund, and drew the conclusion that the act thus really meant that failure to pay a debt might be the basis of a criminal charge. Knight was now in a peculiar position, he said, of having lost an excellent farm and home, at a figure which he would certainly never have considered worth while.

Mr W. C. Harley, S.M., commented that he could see it only that the act provided that where a vendor received money wrongfully he would not be allowed to keep it. It was a case where ordinary laymen were guided largely by their professional consultants. "It seems that some who have not appeared in these proceedings have not regarded the actions of their clients in the manner they should have,” he said. “Had they done so and given full and free advice on certain aspects, the cases might never have come before the Court.”