Crafar says life 'hell' since receivers took over property

Allan Crafar says he has no plans to leave his home. Photo / Daily Post

Allan Crafar says he has been living in "hell" since receivers took over his family company.

The former dairy farmer, his son, and brother, were asked to leave their individual properties near Reporoa by last Friday.

Receivers KordaMentha offered Mr Crafar an exit sweetener of rental of properties in Rotorua for six months - on the condition he moved out of his home on farmland near Reporoa.

The offer expired last week but none of the Crafar family wants to leave and they say they haven't been given a final date.

Mr Crafar told The Daily Post yesterday the first he knew the receivers wanted him to leave was a letter on March 11.

It was followed up with a phone call later in the month when the receiver asked if he was going to take up their proposal.

Mr Crafar said he had asked for more information about why he had to move but had received nothing.

He said the situation was a "bit of a hard time for everyone" and he believed the receivers were trying to break up his family by making his son and brother leave their homes as well.

Attempts by The Daily Post to contact the receivers have been unsuccessful.

However, it has been reported that they would not divulge what measures they would take to get the Crafars off the property, saying they needed the property for business reasons.

Receivers took over Mr Crafar's property on October 5 and he said life since had been "hell".

He had no plans to leave his home. "Otherwise I may as well bloody die," he said.

Layla Robinson, the partner of Mr Crafar's son, Robert Crafar, said they were also being evicted from their Reporoa home. They did not want to leave, she said.

"These receivers have been particularly rough with the family."

She supported Allan Crafar and wished the receivers had at least kept in contact with them and talked to the family more.

As the stand-off in Reporoa continues, a Crafar family farm near Palmerston North has been fined $40,000 for wrongly discharging effluent.

A judge fined the Crafar family company in the Palmerston North District Court last week after convicting it of discharging effluent at Scotts Ferry.

Mr Crafar's four companies, which own 20 dairy farms, went into receivership last October with debts of $200 million to PGG Wrightson and banks.