Bankrupt ‘imagined $20,000 legacy

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34123, 8 April 1976, Page 10

Bankrupt ‘imagined $20,000 legacy

A woman bankrupt told a meeting of her creditors yesterday that she had raised credit by telling a bank she : would be the beneficiary of ' $20,000 from a deceased estate. She admitted under examination by the Official Assignee (Mr I. A Hansen) that she did not know what had given her the ' idea that she would receive such a legacy. It might have been her: imagination, she said. Valda Lynette Wills, aged 32. a clerk, of Huntsbury Avenue, disclosed that she had debts amounting to $4121 and a deficiency of liabilities over assets of $3851 Her onlx asset was a television sef worth $7O. Mrs Wills. now divorced, agreed that she had been adjudicated bankrupt for the first time in 1968 and again on March 19 this year. She admitted that she had gone to a bank and obtained) an overdraft b\ saying she would! receive $20,000 from the estate of a person she named as Miss (’arson who had been a patient in a convalescent home in Auckland. Mis Wills said she did not know what had given her the idea that Miss (.'arson was a woman of substance or that she i would be left anything from her! estate. Mrs Wills said she realised in 1973 that she was in financial ‘ difficulties and had formed a i creditors' pool. Site did not know how much money had been paid into the pool or to whom it had ) teen paid. In November. 1973. she had I pone to live as a housekeeper at her present address and had obtained food and lodgings and' the use of a car in return for) the care of the owner and hisi son. aged IL She said she ’had been em- ■

ployed by the Ministry of AerV culture and Fisheries tor th< last three years until the tin-# of her adjudication and ha 4 earned about $135 a fortnight She was at present work mg part-time for a pharmacy >er\ »<■<• She said she had been a rcgi% tered breeder of S\ dney Silkj< dogs and had sold two or three to an Australian. She had beef paid $3OO with a cheque whicU the bank had dishonoured. She admitted that she ha< bought clothes at a city sforf using the name 1. H. Barnett bul that the clothes had not beei paid for. The Official Assignee asked Mr| Wilis to explain why it was thai she was in debt to the extend of $4121 but could not account lor the money she had earned. She said she would make 1 contribution towards the settle* ment of her debts under th# present bankruptcy. She adnu‘t» fed she had told the bank tMI she was a widow because she not proud of being a divorcee. Mr Harden declined to make any .summing up of tlie proceed ings but obtained "Hie authoritf of tiie meeting to s<4f the banto rupt's assert by private treaty