INTERPRETATION OF WILL

Taranaki Daily News, 26 August 1931, Page 14

INTERPRETATION OF WILL

AUCKLAND CITY SECTIONS.

PERPETUAL ANNUITIES.

Judgment was given by Mr. Justice Smith at Auckland on Saturday in the case in which an interpretation was asked of certain clauses in the Will of Walter Richard McElwain, who died in December, 1900. The only remaining unadministered property dealt with in the will consists of three sections in lower Queen Street, Auckland, in the neighbourhood of the New Zealand Insurance Company Buildings. In 1854 these section were leased for 999 years at an aggregate annual rental of £206 10s.

The case was before the Supreme Court in September of last year and again last May. Mr. A. H. Johnstone represented the public trustee as trustee of the will in an originating summons for interpretation, and Mr. Leary, Mr. H. A. Anderson, Mr. Northcroft and Mr. North, of Hawera, represented various relatives interested in the will. His Honour found that the part of the property which each child of the testator took was determined by the share of income given to each. The testator intended to divide the total rental of £206 10s irrespective of its source in separate leases, and he did so divide it into specific sums. He had made a gift of property for the purpose of producing three several sums, and that was sufficient to create a perpetual annuity. Answering specific questions in the originating summons, his Honour decided that the children of testator’s daughter Louisa were entitled, on the death of their mother, in equal shares to such part of the Queen Street property as produced £5O a year. The gift of rentals to the sons Percy and Richard was an absolute gift of rentals in perpetuity, but their children had no share or interest under the will. There - was no intestacy as to the Queen Street property.