Decision Reserved On Claim For House

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30288, 14 November 1963, Page 14

Decision Reserved On Claim For House

Decision was reserved by Mr Justice Macarthur in the Supreme Court yesterday in a claim by a retired farmer, Thomas Reginald Black Fowler, for a house and section valued at £2200 on the Lansdowne property, Halswell, from the estate of his two aunts. The aunts. Muriel Beatrice Sharp and Arma Maria Sharp, former owners of Lansdowne, left estates totalling £98,031 before death duties. Fowler, aged 73, brought the claim against the New Zealand Insurance Company, as executor of their estates. Mr W. A. Anderson appeared for the plaintiff and Mr C. M. Roper for the defendant company. When the case opened on Tuesday the plaintiff said he sold his farm near Blenheim in 1952 to Eve with his aunts at Lansdowne. He received award wages, in return for helping them in the homestead, and gardening His aunts built a house on tire property for the plaintiff and his wife, which, he said, they promised would be left to him, with a section, upon their deaths. When evidence for the defence continued yesterday Jack McKenzie, a solicitor, said the last will of Miss Muriel Sharp on April 6, 1954, gave ttie plaintiff the right to purchase the house he occupied at valuation. McKenzie also gave evidence of six wills made by Anna Sharp between 1950 and 1958. The fifth will on December 18, 1957, gave the plaintiff the right to Anna Sharp’s share of the house, and funds for liim to purchase her late sister's share. However, Anna's last will on August 7, 1958. of whicli probate was granted, gave the .plaintiff the right to purchase her share of the house at valuation. The witness said Anna

Sharp wanted an alteration to her will on July 16, 1959. He was not sure that she was clear in her own mind, but gathered she wanted the plaintiff to have the house. Later, however, she said ail beneficiaries were to share equally, and if the plaintiff was to have the house he was to pay for it. Eugene Sefton Tillman, trust manager of the defendant company, said he visited Lansdowne with McKenzie to discuss a new will. He said Miss Sharp was confused in business matters. He suggested to McKenzie that she should have a doctor's report before making a new will. He doubted her testamentary capacity. In cross-examination by Mr Anderson the witness said Muriel Sharp's estate was valued at £38,653 and Anna Sharp’s at £61.378. Death duties were £9764 and £27,826. Hie valuation of the house and half-acre section involved in the claim was £22CO; with improvements made by the plaintiff, the Government valuation was £2700. Joyce Roberts Mclver, a niece of Anna and Muriel Sharp, said her aunts told her the house would be the plaintiff’s to buy at Government valuation if he was still working for them at their deaths. She had never heard jury suggestion that it was to be given to the plaintiff on the aunts’ deaths. Gladys Mary Fowler, a niece of the two Sharps, also said she had not heard of any such arrangement.

Holiday Invitation.—The Spanish Government yesterday invited the men rescued from the Mathilde iron mine at Lengede, West Germany, to spend a week’s free holiday anywhere in Spain.— Madrid, November 12.