LEGAL FEES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 125, 22 November 1935, Page 12

LEGAL FEES

ADJUSTMENT WORK

"NO HARD AND FAST SCALE"

A reply has been received by the New Zealand Farmers' Union from the Minister of Justice (the Hon. J. G. Cobbe) to the suggestion from the Dominion executive of the union that legal costs in connection with matters coming before the Mortgagors' and Tenants' Relief Court should be fixed by the adjustment commission in each case.

The executive had stated that the j reason for its suggestion was that at the present time the scale set out under the Act was, in many cases, most inadequate to cover the legal work necessary for the case to be properly prepared and placed before the commission, with the result that private arrangements in regard to fees or subsequent statement of accounts were the outcome. In some instances this appeared exorbitant, and to overcome the difficulty it was thought the commission should fix the charges when the case was being heard. MINISTER'S REPLY. "The scale of fees to which you refer are those applicable to urban mortgages dealt with under the Mortgagors' and Tenants' Relief Act, 1933," states the Minister in his reply. "There is no hard and fast scale prescribed in respect of cas^s under the Rural Mortgagors' Final Adjustment Act, 1934-35. In this respect the Court of Review has issued the following instruction to adjustment commissions, and this would seem to meet the point raised by your executive:—

'The Court of Review has considered the question of allowing reasonable legal fees in connection with the preparation of applications and attendance before the commission to be made a charge on the first year's revenue, and it is of opinion that it would be reasonable for adjustment commissions to allow reasonable fees in this connection out of the first year's revenue.

"As to what is reasonable must be determined by the work involved in each case. The commission should however, recollect that in fixing fees their policy should be that laid down by the Mortgagors' and Tenants' Relief Act, namely, that the circumstances of the mortgagor of necessity demand charges much lower than solicitors are rightly entitled to ask of clients not in financial difficulties.'"