Charles and Lesley Rouse. Photo / Herald on Sunday
A real estate director dealing with devastated Blue Chip investors has taken formal action against a property valuer involved in a lot of the property dealings.
Martin Dunn, managing director of City Sales in Auckland, believes that investors in Blue Chip properties will lose $400 million on the
sale of the apartments and he has lodged a formal complaint with the Valuers Registration Board against a single valuer.
Most would lose their own homes, said Dunn, because, he believed, they had not been properly informed of the true nature of the assets. "This is the worst thing I've ever seen in 30 years of selling real estate. What we're talking about is horrific, the size is gi-normous," said Dunn. Charles and Lesley Rouse, a retired couple from Kawerau, have lost everything in the Blue Chip collapse. Charles, 71, and his wife, Lesley, 66, have been forced to sell their home and Parnell apartment which carry combined mortgages of $316,000; the interest payments alone are $2200 a month.
Although the Auckland apartment was originally valued at $395,000, the Rouses now believe this was over-inflated.
"We will never, ever get that much. People will want it for a song because of what's happened," Lesley Rouse said.
Selling their Kawerau home, which has been modified for wheelchair-bound Charles' needs, has devastated the pensioner couple.
"What worries us most, is that even if we can afford a rental on top of the mortgage, there would be no ramps, no rails, no nothing," said Lesley Rouse. "If we can't move before it gets cold in April, I'm worried he won't last the winter. We're not after sympathy, we just want to survive."
Dunn also questioned the morality of the banks lending such large amounts of money - more than $1m in some cases - to investors such as the Rouses.
"I doubt whether I could borrow $500,000 let alone $1 million without the bank wanting to see the colour of my underpants," said Dunn.
Slim hopes remain for investors to recover any money as nearly 20 companies connected to Blue Chip property investment group have collapsed.
The companies could owe up to $58 million, say liquidator reports from Meltzer Mason Heath released on Friday.
