COMMISSION ON EXCHANGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16268, 29 June 1916, Page 4

COMMISSION ON EXCHANGES.

—Your correspondent " Farmer" and I are at cross purposes. He simply enunciates the principle, with which I am familiar, that a written agreement to pay ; commission on the gross amount of the purchase money is binding at law. I, on the other hand, wish to discover the principle upon which, in the absence of such an agreement, the Court holds that agents are entitled to commission only on the equities of the properties sold or exchanged. Of course, the contention of the Court may be that a man should pay com- ' mission only on what he owns ; but if this is so, why is it that when a property is sold stamp duty must be paid on the gross value, and not only on the equity? Furthermore, is the soundness of the principle dependent upon the amount of the commission? Is it to be sound when a commission is deemed adequate, and unsound when, owing to the smallness of the equity, it is inadequate? It seems to me ; that the Court is groping after something as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp, and that, * in this dilemma, it will perforce turn to that never-failing friend of the baffled legal mind, quantum meruit. Hamilton. J. E. Haiiux.