“A neighbouring Māori trust got in touch as they wanted to support our cause but when my son did some research we realised there is a Waitangi claim on the farm.
Listen to Jamie Mackay interview Mike Barham on The Country below:
“It absolutely blew my socks off, here we have one of the biggest farms in the country up for sale by international tender and the fact it had a claim on the land was not included in the information memorandum.”
The local Māori trust, which he did not want to name, had a claim to formalise passage through Mangaohane Station to land it owns at the rear of the property which is not accessible directly by road, Barham said.
“They are at no fault what so all, in fact, they support our cause in keeping this farm in New Zealand’s hands, there’s just been a muck up somewhere along the line with information not being disclosed.”
“I’ve had the head of the real estate firm at my place apologising for this and ensuring me a mistake like this won’t happen again,” he said.
Barham said a large syndicate buying the farm when it had the claims on the land would create too many problems and that was why he’d withdrawn his efforts.
“If it was just myself that would be a different story but if you have 100 investors it all becomes a bit difficult, if the claims were disclosed at the beginning I would have never gone near this.”
- RNZ
