LAND AT VOGELTOWN

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 15

LAND AT VOGELTOWN

ONLY £1 PAID

Having agreed in 1911 to purchase from James Rod, butcher, a section of land at Vogeltown for £150, Norah June Ryan, deceased, paid £1 deposit, and in 1929, without making any further payments, made <, statement that she had transferred the property back to Rod. The executors of the deceased's estate were proceeded against by Rod at the Magistrate's Court recently to recover the amount of the purchase money, plus interest. In a reserved judgment delivered yesterday, Mr. E. Page, S.M., held that the executors were liable, and awarded the plaintiff £260 2s. Mr. Page said that a memorandum of agreement for sale and purchase was drawn up by the deceased's solicitors and duly executed by the parties on sth December, 1911, and stamped. The sum of £1 was paid as a deposit, and the balance was declared payable on 9th November, 1914. Notice of sale was given to the "Valuation Department and the Wellington City Council, and the transfer was duly recorded in the valuation and rate books. From that date until the year 1929 the defendant (Ryan) had paid the rates on the section, but up till the present time no payment whatever on account of purchase money or interest (other than the £1 deposit paid in 1911) had been made.

PAYMENT ASKED FOR.

In 1912 the plaintiff wrote the defendant, asking for payment of the interest due, and in 1922 his solicitor wrote to her demanding the interest due to that date, £78 4s 6d, and since 1911 the plaintiff had on numerous occasions personally seen the defendant and requested payment. Each time she pleaded that she had no money, but would pay when she was able to. In 1923 the defendant had the idea of building on the section for her son, or assisting him to build on it. The two saw the plaintiff about the proposal, but- nothing came, of it. The defendant had tor many years been a regular customer of the plaintiff, and for that reason he was reluctant to take steps to enforce payment.

"ALERT BUSINESS WOMAN."

The plaintiff again saw the defendant in 1929, and demanded the purchase money with interest, and stated that unless it was paid he intended to take proceedings to recover it. The defendant got angry and told him he could take hit section back. She then went to the City Council and presented a notice, signed by herselt, stating that she had transferred the property to the plaintiff, and the City Council, acting on that notice, had since then sent the rate demands to the plaintiff, but he had not paid them. *~.*. On Bth October, 1930, the defendant, "who appeared to have been an alert business woman," died and left an estate of moderately substantial'value. It was contended for the defence that the claim was barred by the Statute of Limitations. "The Limitation. Act of ,1623," said Mr. Page, "which is in force in New Zealand, provides that all actions for debt shall be sued for within six years after the cause of action arose, and the Act of 1833 fixes the period in all actions of debt upon any bond or other specialty (i.e., a deed) at twenty years. "The main controversy in the present case is centred round the question whether the document executed by the parties in 1911 headed 'Memorandum of Agreement is in law a deed. "The old distinction between a deed and a simple contract was that the former was executed under seal, and the latter was not; The Property Law Act, 1908, provides the formalities with which a deed must be executed in New Zealand, and enacts that neither sealing nor formal delivery are necessary. The agreement in question is a legally-drawn document intended to have a final effect as evidencing the bargain between the parties. . . . 1 entertain no doubt that if it had been executed under seal it would have amounted to: a deed." . _ At the hearing of the case, Mr. C. W. Nielsen appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. M. J. Crombie for the executors of the estate:*" '