QUESTION OF COMMISSION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 13

QUESTION OF COMMISSION

ASSIGNEE IN BANKRUPTCY.

GIFT FOR BENEFIT OF ESTATE.

The question whether the official assignee was entitled to charge commission on certain moneys handed over for the benefit of a bankrupt estate was at issue in a case in which judgment was given by Mr. Justice Herdman at the Supremo Court yesterday. The official assignee, Mr. W. S. Fisher, sought the Court's opinion as to what commission, if any, he was entitled to charge the estate of Stanley Sircombe, with respect to the moneys paid by bankrupt's mother, Hanna Jane Sircombe, in respect of a certain memorandum of mortgage handed over by her for the benefit of the estate. "Mr. V. R. Meredith appeared for the official assignee and Air. G. F. Finlay for Mrs. Sircombe, who opposed the claim for commission The creditors substantially accepted an offer by Mrs. Sircombe to make available for her son's creditors a mortgage of '£1200 in consideration for which they were to leave all stock and implements in his possession. Subsequently the official assignee accepted an offer to release the mortgage on a payment from Mrs. Sircombe equal to 13s 4d in the £. In the course of his judgment His Honor said that if, after a man became Bankrupt, his friends, started a subscription list and gave the proceeds to tho assignee to distribute among his creditors so that bankrupt might get his discharge speedily or the bankruptcy Annulled, the assignee could, he thought, claim commission in respect of these moneys. In like manner, jf any relative or friend made a valid gift of property to a bankrupt before he jot his discharge, and that reached the hands of the assignee and was applied~"by him in payment of a dividend, His Honor thought the assignee could charge commission, because it would bo property "acquired by or devolving upon the bankrupt before his discharge within the meaning of Section 61 of the Bankruptcy Act. In the present case the assigifee was entitled to charge commission.