KEY POINTS:
Auckland Barrister Paul Dale is preparing what he considers will be a test case between Blue Chip investors and GE Finance, an action that could bring hope to investors faced with losing their homes.
The case, involving about $500,000, will centre on the alleged actions of Tasman Mortgages, acting as an agent for GE Finance.
Dale is representing a large group of the 2000 Blue Chip investors who lost $84 million when a string of Blue Chip companies went into receivership between February and April this year.
The outcome of the case could give hope to many more Blue Chip investors who allege their loan documents were tampered with.
But it is likely to be too late for 69-year-old Tauranga woman Margaret Rasmussen-Aagaard who faces losing her house by January 30 if she does not repay a debt which has mounted to $215,000. She has been served notice by TEA Custodians.
Next door, her 91-year-old mother Gwendoline Harrison, another Blue Chip investor, is expecting to lose her house also as her debt mounts to well over $300,000.
In May this year a Wanaka man donated $8000 to cover a Property Law Action notice served on the elderly woman as she lay in her sick bed. But Rasmussen-Aagaard is expecting her mother to be served again in the near future, she said, and neither she nor her mother have the ability to pay.
Rasmussen-Aagaard invested in a Blue Chip joint venture scheme but rather than end up with an apartment in the CBD, the development never went ahead. She and her 78-year-old husband had no idea what they would do if they lost their house, she said.
"We will be left with nothing."
Meanwhile, Blue Chip co-founder Mark Bryers, bailed to his luxury apartment in Sydney's Rocks area after being charged with criminal offences laid by the Companies Office, is still assuring Blue Chip liquidator Jeff Meltzer that he hopes to come up with the money promised since the collapse.
Meltzer said last week that Bryers, who visits Auckland regularly, was "still optimistic" that he would be able to "make money available to us".
Hanging over him are two summary judgments, one for $13.6m - awarded to Consolidated Technologies Corporation - and the other for nearly $4m, awarded to an Auckland businessman.
But Bryers may have escaped the larger of the two debts. He appealed the Consolidated Technologies judgment and the company went into liquidation earlier this month. Although the liquidators can pursue the debt, they are unlikely to.
One source close to Bryers said liquidators never had the money to mount expensive legal action.
"They are never keen to get involved in litigation because it is a bottomless pit and even if you win, he [Bryers] probably has nothing anyway."
jane.phare@heraldonsunday.co.n
