The Supreme Court has ruled that a mortgage over a family home should be removed after a son forged his mother's signature to get money - but both parents died without hearing the outcome of the case.
Rodney Nathan went to Auckland lender Dollars & Sense Finance, which
agreed to loan him $245,000 so he could buy shares in a business.
The financier demanded that both Nathan's parents provide security in the form of a mortgage over their Kerikeri house. At that point the parents had separated and the mother was living in Gisborne.
Nathan got his father's signature but, knowing that his mother, Rerekohu Nathan, was unlikely to agree, he forged her signature.
But Nathan's business failed and he could not meet his payment obligations. Dollars & Sense sought to have the property sold but the parents resisted.
The father said he had been the victim of undue influence, although he died before the matter went to trial.
The financier then tried to recover its money from the mother. She died in December.
The case went to the High Court and the Court of Appeal which ruled the mortgage should be removed from the Land Transfer register.
But Dollars & Sense took the matter against Rerekohu Nathan to the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias, Justice Blanchard, Justice Tipping, Justice McGrath and Justice Anderson heard the matter on November 22.
They have now ruled and decided to uphold previous court decisions.
Rodney Nathan was engaged as an agent of Dollars & Sense to get the signatures for the mortgage, the Supreme Court decided.
His forgery must be treated as done within the agency, so was therefore the fraud of an agent of Dollars & Sense.
The Court of Appeal was right to dismiss the appeal against the order for removal of the mortgage from the register, the Supreme Court ruled.
