KEY POINTS:
A property developer in dispute with Blue Chip investors says it's been as much a victim of the scheme's collapse as anyone.
Greenstone Group says it will lose "significantly more" than other investors in Blue Chip.
Interests of the group were before the High Court yesterday, in the
next stage of the developer's wrangle with 49 Blue Chip victims who are refusing to settle on around 60 apartments in a 111-unit central city block.
The case is the tip of an iceberg. Action is pending over four other developments - one of them another Greenstone project - involving more than 250 Blue Chip investors.
The first group of 49 achieved a small victory yesterday, in getting Greenstone to agree that their deposits on apartments in the Barclay building on Albert St will remain in a solicitor's trust account until the matter is resolved.
One of that group is Neil Hickman, a British investment banker who sank $1.7 million into 19 Blue Chip apartments as part of his application for New Zealand residency.
Like the others, Hickman and his wife, Michelle, had no intention of actually buying most of the apartments - they were sold Blue Chip products that promised an income stream and the return of their original deposits once the apartments were developed.
But with the collapse of the Blue Chip scheme in February, investors were left holding sale and purchase agreements on apartments they didn't want and couldn't afford.
The investors have cancelled their agreements and want their deposits back.
The Barclay is the first of the five developments at issue to be completed. It opened this week as the Chifley Suites, short-stay apartments run by the Australian Chifley Hotels group.
In the High Court yesterday, Justice Geoffrey Venning said because of the case's urgent nature it could be given priority court time.
Greenstone Group founder John Abel-Pattinson said the developer had no interest in going to a full High Court hearing.
He said yesterday's agreement formalised the goodwill process it had been working under.
"We have approached all the purchasers and offered them a range of options and solutions to allow them to settle."
These included credits, discounts and developer guarantees, he said.
"So the developer is making a significant sum of money available for the purchasers to allow them to settle some or all of the apartments they've purchased."
For example, an investor who had deposits on three apartments may be required to settle on only one, and Greenstone would take on the two others and sell them at a later date.
"The developer has been caught as much as any purchaser by this whole saga."
But the barrister representing the investors, Paul Dale, said no deals had been done.
"We've said we're prepared to talk to them. There are no deals in place, but we're obviously prepared to listen to any proposal that they have, and they're going to send us one."
The investors claim the agreements are unenforceable.
They say Greenstone and the Blue Chip group had an agency relationship, including a profit-share arrangement. They are also taking action against three Blue Chip-recommended lawyers over the advice they gave - Jonathan Mathias, Zeljan Unkovich, and Hamilton firm Foster, Milroy & Turketo.
