IMPORTANT APPEAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 149, 25 June 1943, Page 3

IMPORTANT APPEAL

INTEREST REMISSIONS Important questions concerning voluntary remissions of interest made under a mortgage during the depression years are involved in a case which is now before the Court of Appeal. The appellant is bMaurice Stirling Chambers, sheep farmer, of Tauroa, Hawke's Bay (Mr. W. J. Sim, K.C., with him Mr. R. E. Tripe), and the respondents are the beneficiaries and executors under the will of the late bMrs. Margaret Chambers, wife of Thomas Mason Chambers (Mr. C. G. Harker, Waipawa) and the Commissioner of Stamp Duties (Mr. P. B. Broad). The Court consists of the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers),,Mr. Justice Kennedy, Mr. Justice Callan, and Mr. Justice Northcroft. The appeal is from a judgment of Mr. Justice Blair after a four-day sitting at Napier in May, 1942, and concerns voluntary adjustments made by agreement between mortgagee and mortgagor without reference to the mortgage relief commissions or the Court. The remissions totalled about £7000, and the question of payment of several thousands of pounds in duty is involved in the appeal. Mr. Justice Blair found that the remissions had, in fact, been made and that all the parties believed them to have been made effectively, but he held that they were ineffective in law owing to the fact that they had not been incorporated in a formal relief court order or in a formal memorandum of reduction. The Crown's contention is that the remissions were not completed in law in such a way as to be binding, and that the amount of the remissions forms, part of the estate of the deceased mortgagee (Mrs. Margaret Chambers) for death duty purposes. The case affects many mortgages throughout New Zealand.