An elderly couple were sentenced this week for fraudulently doctoring a LIM report when selling their North Shore house. Photo / Getty
A former real estate agent and now convicted fraudster once described the charges he faced as a “storm in a teacup”. But the respected 81-year-old businessman is now pondering his deception while serving home detention alongside his elderly wife. Lane Nichols investigates the curious case of the doctored Lim.
A professional couple who feared being stuck with two mortgages deliberately altered a Land Information Memorandum (Lim) report so they could sell their leaky home at full market price and believed they did so with “full knowledge” of their real estate agent, court documents reveal.
The husband, who later became a top-selling agent for the same firm - Barfoot & Thompson - continued to sell houses for a year while facing a fraud charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.
But he was forced to fess up to his employer following Herald involvement in 2021, before being cut loose by the company and reported to the industry watchdog, and finally faced justice this week with his co-accused wife.
During an emotional restorative justice meeting with the victims last year, his wife admitted she had masterminded the deception to avoid losing money on their old house.
“I was really nervous and didn’t want to end up with two houses so we had to sell.
“I wanted to be mortgage-free and thought, ‘I can’t go on like this’.”
She said she regretted her actions but couldn’t reimburse the stiffed buyers - Mark Dansey and Amanda Clough - for their significant lost equity, after they were forced to sell the North Shore home as a leaky property for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than it would otherwise have been worth.
“If I had the money, I’d give you everything you’re asking for but I can’t,” the wife said.
“I feel wicked, terrible and really bad. It was a bad call and I apologise profusely. I wish I could take it back.”
The husband and wife both pleaded guilty last year to altering a document with intent to deceive and were sentenced on Wednesday to four months’ home detention and six months’ community detention respectively.
They were ordered to pay $55,000 in reparation, despite a valuation showing Dansey and Clough were left nearly $300,000 out of pocket.
And though the couple admitted deliberately falsifying the Lim for personal gain, their names have been permanently suppressed after the husband successfully argued stress from being publicly identified could trigger a catastrophic health condition with lethal consequences.
“I may have a heart attack or a stroke, and die,” he told the judge.
The fraudsters came face-to-face with their victims last August during a restorative justice meeting in Glenfield.
Court documents obtained by the Weekend Herald show the husband and wife were downsizing to become mortgage-free and had gone unconditional on a new property at the time of their offending in 2015.
With settlement approaching, they were desperate to sell their old home to avoid being stuck with two mortgages.
But there was a catch.
The Lim report had a historic notification warning of “major moisture-related cladding defects”.
Attempts to have the Auckland Council remove the notification had proved unsuccessful and they knew it would put off potential buyers or dramatically affect the value of their major asset.
And besides, the house had always been bone-dry, the wife would later tell Corrections staff preparing a pre-sentencing report.
So they devised a plan. They would simply make the “nasty thing” go away.
The couple ordered an electronic copy of the Lim from the Auckland Council. Using their home computer, they deleted the moisture reference and replaced it with a blank space.
They then forwarded the doctored version to their Barfoot agent Yvonne Wang, and it was subsequently uploaded to the company’s website and made available to prospective buyers.
Clough, 55, and Dansey, 61, viewed the property on June 22, 2015. Two days later they learned the auction had been brought forward to June 26.
They had less than two days to either commit to the purchase or withdraw from tendering an offer.
The next day, on June 25, they obtained a copy of the report from Barfoot & Thompson’s website and forwarded it to their lawyer as part of their due diligence, a summary of facts says.
Believing the Lim was “full and correct”, the couple purchased the property on June 26 for $1.19 million, “a decision they would not have made had they sighted the original Lim documents”.
Four years later, Clough and Dansey decided to sell the home through Barfoot & Thompson.
Their agents requested a copy of the Lim direct from the Auckland Council and discovered the moisture reference.
They were shocked to learn their property was leaky and decided to sell it “as is” on July 22, 2019 for a loss, at $1.165 million.
Rocked by the deception, Dansey and Clough went to police.
Incriminating emails from the couple to Wang were uncovered a year later during a warranted police search of their new house and computer.
The emails read: “Just waiting on the Lim to be corrected”, and, “You will be relieved to hear the nasty thing has been removed”.
The couple were charged and put before the court.
They initially denied knowledge of the doctored Lim, with the wife telling police “she believed everyone knew it was a leaky home”.
The husband later told the Herald the case was a “storm in a teacup”, with the complainants “hell-bent on making life difficult for us”.
His words would come back to bite.
And the case would expose the risk of buyers relying on property documents supplied by vendors or their real estate firm and raise questions of legal liability.
Court documents show the fraud was the wife’s idea and her husband agreed to play along.
“She commented that she thought [the Lim notification] should not have been there, and that they did not want to loose [sic] money on the sale of the house, so removed the wording, informed the real estate agent that it had been remedied, and did not think about the matter again,” the pre-sentencing report states.
“She altered the document because she was feeling desperate and [believed] this was with the full knowledge of her husband and the real estate agent.”
She confirmed she knew her actions were illegal.
The report said the offending was linked to “entitlement”. The wife had offered “no further remorse”.
In fact, “after the alteration had been done, she never gave it another thought”.
She told Corrections staff she would comply with the sentencing but was “not particularly happy” at the thought of being restricted in her movements.
The couple will complete their sentences in a five-bedroom property just a short walk from the beach and with ocean views over Hauraki Gulf.
It has a CV of $1.35m and was purchased in 2015 with the proceeds of the sale to Dansey and Clough.
Property records show the defendants made $450,000 in capital gain on their old home in under three years.
During the August meeting, Clough told the wife: “You were able to make this profit by fraudulently removing allegations of water tightness issues from the Lim. You boosted your profit at our expense and left us holding the baby.”
The fraud had far-reaching consequences for Dansey and Clough.
They were forced to sell the property for $25,000 less than paid for it, despite owning it for four years in a rising market.
They had to buy a smaller house in a first-home buyer area on the city fringe, meaning their children could no longer stay.
They had also lost their financial security and faced an uncertain retirement.
“Our option is to have a mortgage or sell up and move out of Auckland,” Clough told the wife. “I’m so upset to hear you say you have no money as you have spent more than two years paying a lawyer to fight these charges. That money was ours.”
Dansey said: “This has had a long-term emotional impact on us. We are suffering for your blatant fraud. We feel robbed of our peace of mind and of any sense of security about our future.”
The accused couple have been fighting for suppression since August 2021 when the Herald learned of the case.
The husband first argued it would be unfair to Barfoot & Thompson if he was named, as the company could suffer adverse publicity by association with his earlier offending.
He feared losing his job and no longer being able to support his family.
At the time, he was yet to tell the company’s senior management about the fraud charge, but was certain Barfoot & Thompson would also want its name kept secret, the court heard.
However, when that argument failed, the husband took another tack, arguing his bad health meant he was at imminent risk of a fatal heart attack from stress associated with publication of his name.
Submissions filed by the man said he suffered severe ischaemic heart disease.
“Publication of my name will cause me a huge amount of stress and I am worried that my heart will not cope.
“I am not saying I have not broken the law or that I should get name suppression just because I am old, or because I am an otherwise law-abiding citizen.
“I am making this application out of necessity because of my health condition, which has gotten worse since this case started and in the face of intensifying media coverage.”
The man had suffered a stroke last year. A hospital cardiologist remarked he’d “dodged a bullet” and could suffer another stroke “anytime”.
The thought of being identified “causes me a great deal of stress”.
He said he was a proud man who had worked hard over the years, contributing to charitable and community endeavours.
But he had no doubt media coverage of his sentencing would be “overly adverse to my wife and me”.
“My concern is not just about my family and friends’ reaction to publication, but also my wider circle of acquaintances and the wider public being those who I might deal with in the future.
“I am not going to be able to escape this story.
“If I am exposed to stressful situations, I may have a heart attack or a stroke, and die.
“I just want to be here as long as I can for my wife and my family in later years.”
No remorse was expressed in the man’s submission for his offending, or its effects on Dansey and Clough.
The Herald opposed the man’s application, arguing he should be named in the interests of open justice and transparency, and on public interest grounds given the case involved manipulation of official property documents by someone who went on to become a real estate agent.
The Crown also opposed suppression, saying stress from the sentencing process was an “ordinary consequence” of the man’s crime.
His lawyer described the offending as “unsophisticated” and motivated by a “genuine and honest belief” that the council record needed to be corrected.
“It is difficult to reconcile this offending with [the man’s] track record and good standing in his community,” she said. “This has been a significant blight on what has otherwise been an exemplary record.”
However, Crown prosecutor Fiona Culliney said the man’s deception was premeditated and had caused significant financial harm.
It demonstrated “deliberate efforts to deceive innocent buyers as to the true state of the property” and was purely motivated by financial gain.
She said an apology delivered during the restorative justice meeting rang hollow after he cited the principle of “caveat emptor” - or buyer beware.
“No acknowledgement of remorse and effectively blaming the victims for not being more savvy to pick up his fraud.”
Culliney said the case undermined people’s trust in reputable legal documents when buying and selling property.
The man had surrendered his real estate licence but that did not detract from the public interest given “a person holding a real estate licence had previously offended in this way”.
Defence submissions for the wife suggested her offending “was borne out of panic, poorly thought through and its detection was inevitable”.
Now in her 70s, she had led a “blameless and upstanding life”. A conviction was a “significant fall from grace”.
The woman appeared in the dock wearing a fetching suit and clutching a designer handbag, with brightly painted pink fingernails.
She is yet to tell her employer that she committed fraud.
“There’s nothing novel about this case,” her lawyer told the court. “Two people tried to get away with something and they got caught.”
Clough read a victim impact statement saying she and Dansey were “floored” after learning their home had weather tightness problems.
The offending had “devastating” impacts on their lives emotionally and financially.
They were forced into a “fire sale” situation due to the home being leaky, with only “bargain hunters” willing to make offers.
“On top of this pressure, we were also dealing with feelings of shock, disbelief, anger, and deep resentment at having to bear the financial consequences of your dishonesty.”
The man’s “storm in a teacup” comments were “hugely offensive and upsetting”.
The defendants’ initial proposed reparation payment of $25,000 was insulting when they had made $450,000 in capital gain.
Clough and Dansey said they could not afford lawyers to pursue civil proceedings against the couple, and were now time-barred.
“Given the damage we’ve suffered, it is quite beyond our capacity to comprehend that you are planning to walk away from your criminal act and leave us to suffer the consequences of your actions.”
As Clough read her statement, the man scribbled notes and shook his head.
Judge Maria Pecotic said buyers should be able to rely on Lim reports and the couple’s “blatant fraud” had caused enormous harm.
“Once the fraud was discovered you must have realised it would have a detrimental impact on the value of the property.”
The man’s restorative justice meeting with the victims had been “tense and emotional” with “no outcome achieved”.
The judge refused to offer him any discount for remorse, saying “lip service” was not enough.
“You provided a disclaimer to your apology. It needs to be genuine.”
She sentenced the couple to community-based sentences to reflect their guilty pleas, age, previous good character and failing health, permanently suppressing their names.
Barfoot & Thompson managing director Peter Thompson said the case sent a strong message that those involved in selling property need to be honest in their dealing with potential buyers.
Everyone involved in buying and selling real estate benefited “when the integrity of verbal comments and documentation are not called into question”.
Thompson said while it was not unusual in 2015 for agents across the industry to accept information such as Lim reports from vendors, the company had “for a number of years” since sourced them directly from councils.
The husband alerted the company in 2020 that an investigation was taking place following a complaint relating to activity in 2015 when he was a vendor. He was “strictly supervised” during this period by his branch manager.
However, a year later in 2021, the man’s contract was terminated when the company learned he was facing a criminal charge and the matter immediately reported to the REA.
Thompson would not comment on Wang while investigations were under way in Australia.
Asked whether the company would accept liability or compensate the victims, he said: “At the time the offence occurred, the person involved was a vendor and a client. He and his wife are the only ones who have been charged and found guilty of a crime.”
Real Estate Authority boss Belinda Moffat urged buyers to commission property inspections by accredited inspectors, conduct title searches and obtain Lim reports directly from local councils, then have the documents reviewed by a lawyer.
Real estate agents were required to disclose information about property defects. A failure to disclose could result in disciplinary action, with fraudulent behaviour referred to appropriate authorities.
“We would hope that instances of criminal fraud, including forgery, are rare, and we encourage agents and vendors to make available relevant information that they hold about a property to buyers.
“We do however encourage buyers to also do their own homework and ensure that the Lim is current and up to date, and that they commission their own building reports so that they can rely on them.”
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