Property developer who left homeowners in the lurch declared bankrupt

Point To Point Holdings went into liquidation at the start of 2017 leaving 30 houses at various stages of construction between Tuakau and Whangarei. Picture / 123RF

The boss of a collapsed building company that left 30 homeowners in the lurch has been declared bankrupt for the second time.

Auckland man Stephen Foley was the director of Point To Point Holdings, which went into liquidation at the start of 2017, leaving 30 houses at various stages of construction between Tuakau and Whangarei.

The latest report from liquidators reveals that Point to Point's creditors are still owed $1.1m and that the tax department is a further $478,000 out of pocket.

Foley's creditors began to circle last year and a law firm took him to the High Court at Auckland to bankrupt both him and his wife over $40,000 in legal fees.

Carter Holt Harvey, which Point to Point Holdings owes $98,000, also pursued Diane Foley over guarantees she gave for materials the building products company had supplied.

A hearing in May before Associate Judge Roger Bell revealed that Stephen Foley owed IRD about $500,000. That included for child support he hadn't paid since 2001.

Associate Judge Bell, in a decision released publicly this month, said that the Foleys were "clearly insolvent".

"The Foleys have been reticent to make full disclosure of their circumstances," the judge said.

"Mrs Foley gives relatively brief evidence as to what their liabilities might be, but she couches it in terms that leave a suspicion that there may be other liabilities and creditors that have still to appear. The Foleys say nothing about their current business activities; they say nothing about their assets; they say nothing about their income; and they say nothing about how they came to be insolvent. Instead, they have left the creditors to do their own digging as best they can," he said.

Stephen Foley's position is much worse than his wife's, the judge said.
"His is a clear case where an insolvent ought to be met with the consequences of having failed to pay liabilities as they have fallen due," the judge said.

"I regard Mr Foley as a distinct risk factor because he has been adjudicated bankrupt once before, although that was many years ago. But, more alarmingly, he was banned from holding a company directorship for two years; that was in 2006, after he had been discharged from his first bankruptcy."

Associate Judge Bell declared the couple bankrupt.