Terry Serepisos' mum Alliki Serepisos being chased for debts to finance company

Thursday, 16 March 2017

The mother of Terry Serepisos is fighting finance firm General Finance about the sale of her Wellington apartment.

A finance firm is trying to claw back money it is owed by Terry Serepisos' mum after she began defaulting on her loan repayments more than two years ago.

General Finance sold Alliki Serepisos' leaky Wellington apartment for $580,000 in May 2016 through a mortgagee sale, to recover costs from her loan defaults. Despite the sale, there is still money owing to General Finance.

Alliki Serepisos claims she did not get the best price for the apartment, and some chattels — worth about $15,000 — were sold when they should not have been.

In Wellington High Court on Thursday, lawyer Sean McAnally, representing General Finance, said it was the 'best possible price at the time of sale'.

* Terry Serepisos' mother sells Miramar building, home to The Larder, for $1.1m

* Serepisos relative happy with mortgages**

Reading from court files, Associate Judge Warwick Smith said there had been another offer of $800,000 around the same time.

This came about as a result of a meeting between 'Mr Serepisos' and 'Mr Chin', the judge said.

McAnally said it was unlikely Chin's interest in the property would have resulted in a serious offer, as he had not seen the apartment and had not been told about its issues.

'There was a vague expression of interest, versus a serious offer on the table,' McAnally said.

'He hadn't seen it. He hadn't done any form of due diligence. He didn't know it was a leaky building situation, or the earthquake concerns, that may have well come to light in recent times.'

Kevin Smith, lawyer for Alliki Serepisos, said Chin's offer was 'not a sham'.

Chin had attempted to contact General Finance, and gain access to the apartment, but was unsuccessful, he said.

'Here he is with a substantial amount of money, and he couldn't get in.'

Kevin Smith also claimed the firm took too long to sell the property - about 18 months.

'I accept that a mortgagee can take time to sell, but the fact that it took so long increased the losses to the defendant - about $200,000,' Smith said.

'If it was 18 months earlier, the defendant would have had little or no debt.'

Kevin Smith argued there had to be some responsibility for the mortgagee to protect the equity of the defaulting mortgagor.

The judge said written affidavits claimed the agent was not acting reasonably, because the offer was not followed up by General Finance.

'And one of the reasons for that is the agent had some sort of connection with the purchaser.'

Kevin Smith told the judge he found out two days ago that the agent and the buyer had a 'close personal relationship'.

McAnally argued if there was anything 'untoward' between the agent and the buyer, it was a matter to be dealt with by the Real Estate Agents Authority (REAA).

Judge Smith reserved his decision.

Property developer Terry Serepisos, the former Wellington Phoenix owner and host of New Zealand's version of The Apprentice, was declared bankrupt in 2011.

He was discharged from bankruptcy in 2014.