Farm couple's mortgagee sale heartbreak

Stuart McNie's grandfather held on to his farm through the Great Depression. But he did not have to face floods, then drought, then the "harsh, uncompromising" actions of a mortgage company.

McNie and his wife Raewyn are the victims of a new recession the like of which has not been seen since the 1930s, when thousands lost their land and their homes.

Tauranga company First Mortgage Trust recovered its $1 million loan by selling their 360ha Raetihi sheep farm and homestead to former Federated Farmers' president, Charlie Pedersen.

So, on Friday, the couple packed their belongings and left the home where McNie's father and grandfather had died.

The house will sit empty. The new owners have no use for it.

Speaking to the Herald on Sunday that afternoon, McNie told about the week he got the news; how he had sat on a ridge and looked down on the beloved farm that had been in his family for 113 years.

"I sat on the hill for two days. It was like I had died. It was like I was at a funeral and people had come in to sort out our possessions. People were just going through all our stuff," he said.

By Friday, McNie was stoic. He put his dogs on the back of his 4WD and drove off the land for the last time.

The couple are staying at their daughter Kelly-Ann's nearby house, but have no idea where to go from there.

They have been fighting through the courts, since August last year, to hang on to just a slice of their land on Ohura Rd in the Raetihi district. Instead they will get the $500,000 left from the land's forced sale.


The McNies said they had been in financial straits since 2004 due to floods, drought, family problems and bad farming advice.

They went to First Mortgage Trust (FMT) and over two years borrowed $1 million - a first mortgage of $900,000, then in mid-2007 a second mortgage of $100,000 to service the payments to get them through the summer of last year.

But the region's big drought a year ago destroyed their chance of trying to pay the debt and step up their farm business, McNie said.

Last May they were served with a Property Law Act notice by FMT for $10,000 in arrears.

The couple decided the only way out was to sell 280ha and retain the 80ha block that included the old homestead.

Valued at $1.2m plus GST, the sale would have repaid the $1m loan.

Charlie Pedersen made the couple a $1.7m offer for the whole 360ha, but the McNies refused.

"This was our family home," McNie said. "I would never let it go."

He says, "Everything then went quiet. It had a sinister feel and we didn't hear from anyone at FMT, no one answered our calls, it was very strange," he said.

On Friday, August 15, they arrived home at 8.15pm after being out all day to find their farm had been sold to Pedersen. They had 11 days to leave.

It was not only sold, there was nothing they could do because they had missed a 4pm deadline, which they claim they knew nothing about.

Two faxes from FMT's lawyer that day said if they did not come up with an alternative offer for their farm by 4pm then Pedersen's offer to buy the property of 364ha for $1.7 million plus GST would go through.

So by the time the couple found the faxes later that day, Pedersen owned their farm.

"All they wanted was money - a person's life didn't matter to them. I hope they can all live with themselves," McNie said.
In December, Pedersen returned to find them on the farm so filed a High Court action to get them off it.

In his decision, released a week ago, Justice Robert Dobson said Pedersen was entitled to vacant possession of the farm on February 27.

Pedersen said: "The High Court has made a decision and I'll stick with that ... I'm very comfortable with what has gone on."

FMT spokesman Brian Jones said there was another side to the story and that the company had acted professionally.

But the couple's Auckland-based lawyer Kelly Quinn said he was looking at possible legal redress. It was unusual to get such a swift mortgagee sale, he said, especially when there was a surplus in the farm.

Loading up his ute back in Raetihi, Stuart McNie said his final hours on the farm were tough. "She's a bit of a sad evening." And he turned the keys in the ignition.

- WANGANUI CHRONICLE