X. Y.ex parte; Re a Debtor's Summons

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 21 June 1938
• Date: 21 June 1938
• Court: High Court

Ex parte X. Y

Debt accruing due to - Non-intervention of Assignees -Debtor's summons for debt due issued by bankrupt - Whether prior consent of Official Assignee necessary - Irish Bankrupt and Insolvent Act,1857 (20 21 Vict. c. 60), s. 267.

Although s. 267 of the Irish Bankrupt and Insolvent Act, 1857, provides that when a person is adjudged a bankrupt "all the personal estate and effects of such bankrupt, present and future . . . and all debts due or to be due to him, shall become absolutely vested in the Assignees for the time being for the benefit of the creditors," yet the Courts have drawn a distinction between the vesting of the personal estate which the bankrupt had at the date of the adjudication and the vesting of personal estate which he acquires afterwards: in regard to the latter class of property, he must acquire it for himself before the Assignees can claim it, and an interval, however short, must elapse between the acquiring of the property by the bankrupt and the arising of the right on the part of the Assignees to claim it. And until the Assignees do intervene, all transactions by the bankrupt after his bankruptcy, in respect of his after-acquired property, are valid. On the 8th of March, 1937, one, T. B., was adjudicated a bankrupt, and on the 12th of November, 1937, the Court refused to make any order on an application brought by the Official Assignee and by the Creditors' Assignee that portion of the bankrupt's earnings should be applied in reduction of...