Ike Finau, whose front yard has been adorned with protest billboards for more than two decades, is at risk of losing his home over unpaid rates bills. Photo / Michael Craig
An Auckland man who’s spent two-decades posting homemade political billboards in his front yard now risks having his house seized by the government officials he’s been fighting.
Ekenasio “Ike” Finau’s Grey Lynn home has become famous for billboard-sized signs attacking politicians, judges and councillors, with the latest claiming an ex-Prime Minister is racist.
His criticism that New Zealand flies the wrong national flag has also been a common theme.
Finau has raised the Te Kara-United Tribes flag - adopted by a group of northern Māori chiefs in 1834 as a national flag - above his Warnock St home.
Finau’s signs nearly landed him in prison in 2002 when he refused to comply with an Auckland Council order to take them down.
Now his latest council stoush could cost him his house.
Council group chief financial officer Ross Tucker said Finau hadn’t paid his property’s rates bill since 2018 and staff had been unable to contact him despite repeated phone calls and door knocks.
“To date, the council’s efforts have been unsuccessful and we have begun the legal process to obtain judgment that could eventually lead to a rating sale, if the owner doesn’t contact us about the unpaid rates,” Tucker said.
While the legal process could end in Finau’s home being forcibly seized and sold, Tucker said that remained a last resort.
The council currently had 161 legal proceedings under way to recover unpaid rates, involving 171 properties.
However, it was more than five years since the council had forced a sale over rates, Tucker said.
Due to privacy laws, the council could not reveal how much money Finau owed in rates.
Property records showed the home was valued at $2.73m in the latest capital valuation round and that the rates bill would be $7448 in the coming 2025-26 year.
The council was taking the latest action because Finau had proved elusive, Tucker said.
The public notice about Warnock St’s unpaid bill stated it had been issued because Finau was “either unknown or absent from New Zealand, or cannot be found”.
“For many years, we have tried direct correspondence, phone calls and multiple visits to the property,” Tucker said.
Now Finau needed to contact the council before December 18 or the local government body would start court proceedings.
If legal action went ahead, the home could potentially be seized and sold 18 months from now.
The council would use the sale to recover money owed to it, while any extra cash would go to the owner or into a court-held trust until the owner claimed it.
Tucker encouraged Finau or an immediate family member to contact the council.
“We always prefer to resolve the matter, rather than take action through the courts that could lead to a rating sale,” he said.
The Herald visited Finau’s home but he could not be reached for comment.
Finau’s dispute with authorities has stretched more than 20 years.
The Auckland Council ordered him to take down billboards attacking councillors in 2001 because they violated a bylaw.
The matter moved to court and, in December 2002, Finau was found in contempt of court for failing to comply with legal orders.
Despite facing 21 days in jail, his signs remained up in his front yard.
Then council did a U-turn.
Despite spending thousands of dollars on lawyers and finding 83 per cent of residents supported the bylaw Finau had been taken to court over, the council feared making him a martyr and asked the judge to reconsider.
A judge agreed and in 2003 struck down the jail term.
Judge Roderick Joyce ruled Finau and his signs were “but a pawn in a game being played out by others”, and that the people “truly responsible for his defiance” were not before the court.
In a 2011 interview, Finau said he had not paid water rates for about 14 years and described his signs as his “media”.
He stated he followed “God’s law” and believed New Zealand operated under a “false jurisdiction”.
He flew the United Tribes flag, which he called the “true sovereign flag”.
Forced rating sales by the Auckland Council are exceptionally rare, with only one completed since the supercity began.
That 2015 sale involved Charlotte Hareta Marsh, who lost her home after a nine-year refusal to pay rates, claiming she had instead paid a self-proclaimed sovereign authority.
Other high-profile sales have been halted at the eleventh hour.
Last year, an auction of an Ōtara home over a $317,000 bill was abandoned after media coverage prompted relatives to reveal the owner was deceased.
The council had been unable to contact him for years.
Similarly, activist Penny Bright - a friend of Finau’s - narrowly avoided losing her Kingsland home months before her death.
After a last-minute protest over a “lack of transparency in council spending,” she struck a deal by applying for a rates postponement, which halted the forced sale proceedings.
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