A bankrupt's property vests in the Official Assignee (OA) at the point of adjudication. That vesting for land is effected by registration of a transmission to the OA .

There cannot be a transfer from the bankrupt directly to a third party purchaser, even if that transfer purports to be from the bankrupt but signed by the OA. There must be a transmission to the OA first. Once title is in the name of the OA, then an A & I may be used by the OA to effect a transfer to a third party. The Public Corporate A & I form should be used because the OA is acting as part of a government department.

Guidelines

In the revised NZLS e-dealing Guidelines (August 2007), the commentary to Guideline M relating to bankrupts has been amended to say that execution of the A & I must be by the OA using the Public Corporate form.

(The commentary previously allowed execution of the A & I by the bankrupt client, with consent of the OA annexed. That is no longer permitted, as the bankrupt client cannot deal with his or her property because it vests in the OA at the point of adjudication.)

Exception

The exception to this requirement is where the bankrupt is not the legal or beneficial owner of the property, but is holding title as a trustee or executor.

In such circumstances the OA need not be involved (and in fact will decline jurisdiction to be involved). The client's self-certification contained in clause 4(c) should be modified by deleting ¡¥not¡¦ and by noting that the client is holding title as trustee or executor, as the case may be: