Bankrupt Expects To Receive £24,000

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30275, 30 October 1963, Page 12

Bankrupt Expects To Receive £24,000

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Oct. 29. A Wellington restaurateur who went bankrupt told a meeting of his creditors today he was due to receive £24,000 under the will of his foster father, an Australian sheepfarmer.

He had not yet received his share, he said, because of difficulty in selling the farm.

The man, Frederick Neil Walker, of Albemarle road. Wellington, said his foster father’s farm was of 26,000 acres, and had 1900 head of sheep and 1500 head of cattle. “If they got £6O an acre, it would be worth about £1,750,000,” he said. Walker’s unsecured debts were said to be £4463, and his assets £2370, leaving a deficiency of £2093. He said he was a creditor of the estate to the extent of £IO,OOO which he had lent to his foster-father in 1928.

It had been money left to him by his grandfather. His foster-father had included a further £I4,(XX) for him in the will. Walker said he opened his business—the Walkabout Coffee and Luncheon Lounge, Ltd., Courtenay place—after his doctor had advised him in February of this year to give up his plumbing business because of a leg injury. He had since sold his shares in the company. A statement by Walker, read by the Official Assignee (Mr J. Last) said that at the time he gave up his plumbing business his liabilities exceeded his assets by about £l6OO. “But this deficit was being gradually reduced,’’ he said. About this time he had received word from solicitors in Australia to the effect that probate had been granted in th? will of his foster-father, Mr W. J. Dine, and that a meeting of the beneficiaries was being held in Sydney.