Chang Min Tat FJ

(delivering the judgment of the Court): The appeal is concerned with one central issue of fact, the payment of the balance of $135,000 for the purchase of the appellant's property by Lawrence Lam Kwok Fou, the first respondent. The appellant says she has not been paid this sum and makes claim for it. Lawrence Lam says he has paid the money to Yakub, the appellant's husband, who has at all relevant times acted as agent with the authority of the appellant. Yakub denies that he has received this sum. The trial judge found for the respondent-purchaser and the vendor now appeals to this court. The 2nd respondent the party to whom the property was transferred and who was thus clearly the sub-purchaser has been joined in the action, and no objection was ever taken to this joinder.

The trial of this simple issue of fact had been complicated by the somewhat remarkable failure of Lawrence Lam to obtain any receipt from either the appellant or Yakub and remained thus to be solved by oral evidence. Lawrence Lam who was at all relevant times the manager of Kwong Lee Bank of Kuching, was a man who must be taken to be used to dealing with money and who must know that the safety i