PRICE OF PROPERTY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 89, Issue 301, 21 December 1945, Page 7

PRICE OF PROPERTY

VENDOR, WHO SUGGESTED A FIGURE, NOT GUILTY THERE WAS NO AGREEMENT TO PURCHASE (P.A.) New Plymouth, Dec. 17. It no agreement for sale and purchase was entered into between the parties it was no offence for the venuor to suggest that a prospective purchaser of the property should consider paying a price different from that which the Land Sales Committee might fix, said Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the New Plymouth Court, in a reserved judgment in a case in which Mrs. Hylda Stockman was charged that, on September 17, at. New Plymouth, she, being the principal, attempted to induce another person, Jeffery Owen Hill, to enter into a transaction or arrangement that was intended to be inconsistent, with the application to be made under the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Act. and its amendment. Hill's evidence, said Mr. Woodward, was that Mrs. Stockman wanted £l3OO for the property in question, and she suggested he would have to pay the difference between that figure and the value the Land Sales Committee might fix, or there would be no sale. He was agreeable to paying £l3OO, but no agreement had been reached, or entered into, and negotiations were broken off by Mrs. Stockman selling to some other person. It was an offence to try to induce any other person to enter any arrangement, which was inconsistent, or intended to be inconsistent, with fny application to the committee, and the price which it might lix a.s the value of the property. It was, however, no offence if the suggestion was made but no agreement was entered into for the deal, because no application could be made for approval of the sale without the parties entering into an agreement for sale and the purchase clause in the Act must be strictly construed, and because there had been no agreement in this case the information v.ould be dismissed.