VPRS 814 Court Of Insolvency Records

Full description

In cases of insolvency, whether voluntary or involuntary, a considerable amount of documentation needed to be assembled to assess the extent of indebtedness, to definitively identify creditors and their claims and in the course of attempting to resolve these claims as satisfactorily and justly as possible and to identify the assets of the insolvent. Often matters of insolvency took some considerable time to resolve with a number of options for resolution such as the attempt to trade out of the insolvency, the liquidation of assets and compounding with creditors by the assignee or trustee of the estate. All of these activities were under the supervision of the Court and the standard measures or steps needed to be documented with results recorded in the Registers.

These proceedings were set out by the statutes governing insolvency in Victoria. These were firstly, the New South Wales Insolvency Acts of 1841 and 1844 and secondly, with the establishment of the Court of Insolvency in the Insolvency Act 1870 the statutes enacted in Victoria. These were superseded in 1928 with Commonwealth laws enacted and applicable in all states.

This series consists of the Schedules,and Deeds of Arrangement, Deeds of Assignment and other documentation as required by the cases heard before the Court of Insolvency at Colac.

Many of these records are the Schedules of documents developed for each case of insolvency. These Schedules may include a Petition; the Appointment of Assignee; the particulars of landed property and other property; Sworn Claims of Creditors or Proofs of Debt; Summary of Creditors Claims; Minutes of meetings of Creditors; Reports by the Assignee or Trustee; Orders Absolute or Nisi and Affidavits of Conformity. The main group of records consist of Deeds of Assignment where an assignee or trustee was appointed by the Court to attempt to resolve the insolvency by compounding with creditors or gathering and distributing the distribution of assets to creditors or by attempting to trade out of the insolvency.

For the most part, Schedules and other documentation is arranged in numerical order (running number) with these numbers being the same as that allocated in the Court Registers and the Register of Insolvencies. Some details of fees paid especially for the registration of insolvencies is recorded on the outside of the file.