HUSBANDS PROPERTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27357, 5 April 1950, Page 8

HUSBANDS PROPERTY

Part Of Money Banked By Wife SAVED FROM HOUSEKEEPING PA AUCKLAND, Apl. 4. The wife of an Auckland labourer, who saved sums from payments made to her for housekeeping purposes and banked them in her name, has been ordered in a reserved decision by Mr Justice Stanton to pay over a portion of the * money to her husband. The latter, John Brownlee Ellis, claimed under the Married Women’s Property Act, 1903, that certain money banked in the name of his wife really belonged to him. His Honor held that £250 of the £4OO in the savings bank at Onehunga represented savings from Ellis’s payments to his wife for housekeeping, was his property, and must be paid to him. The judge said the parties were hopelessly at variance on all material circumstances when they gave evidence. He came to the conclusion that in the main the plaintiff’s account of the financial transactions was more correct than that given by the defendant. Referring to £224 unaccounted for by defendant in the bank book, his Honor said: “The only source suggested by the defendant was winning at the races. If the defendant really possessed • the capacity to pick .and back only winners, she could of course become a wealthy woman, and I can attach little credence to this suggestion.”