Terry Serepisos' mum again facing eviction from home after business deal sours

Friday, 7 July 2023

Terry Serepisos, who starred in television show The Apprentice New Zealand, ran a commercial property empire which was hit hard in the global financial crisis (Video first published in 2019).

Former bankrupt property mogul Terry Serepisos has delayed the mortgagee sale of his mother’s multimillion-dollar Wellington home after reaching a last-minute pact with a one-time business partner.

The hilltop Miramar house was “temporarily withdrawn” from sale about an hour before deadline earlier this week.

The Nevay Rd home was one of three properties involved in a previous dispute that ended with Serepisos and his then 85-year-old mother initially refusing to move out.

In the four years since, the web entangling those properties has grown somehow more knotted, with the properties changing hands again – and, now, a fresh dispute over terms in a contract.

The one constant: Aliki Serepisos, now 89, faces eviction yet again.

Terry Serepesos was bankrupted in 2011 with debts of $200 million (File photo.)

“Be gentle with what you write,” Terry Serepisos said, after the listing for the house had been taken down on Wednesday.

“It affects my mum – it affects an 89-year-old lady.”

The former high-flier – who once owned the Wellington Phoenix football team and previously hosted New Zealand’s version of The Apprentice – was bankrupted in 2011 with debts of $200 million.

He is again fighting off creditors at his beleaguered Century City hotel, which he bought back last year.

The Nevay Rd dispute is a separate matter. This time it isn’t the liquidation of Serepisos’ own companies creating the financial strife.

Auckland-based development firm Black Robin bought the $2.4m house from the Serepisos family in September 2021.

The Black Robin company that owns the property, Nevay Nominees, is now in liquidation.

This resulted in the Serepisos family home momentarily going on the market.

The Nevay Rd home was briefly on the market, owing to a tangled thicket of contracts and someone else’s unpaid debts. (File photo.)

It is understood the Serepisoses have an agreement with Black Robin allowing them to continue living there.

This arrangement was likely to be in jeopardy should the house be sold, Waterstone Insolvency liquidator Damien Grant said.

“The purchaser would need to negotiate with the current residents.

“That would mean either entering into a tenancy agreement, or politely asking them to leave.”

It is the latest development in a contentious saga involving the properties, which have changed hands regularly.

Aliki Serepisos is understood to be living at the Nevay Rd home. (File photo.)

Aliki Serepisos once owned the two properties – as well as a third Miramar property, on Caledonia St, where she lived.

In 2019, property investor Matthew Ryan bought the Caledonia St house after a series of unpaid loans.

The earlier dispute over the Caledonia St property ended in a police call-out. (File photo.)

Terry Serepisos, who has power of attorney over Aliki’s affairs, used the properties as collateral to borrow more than $800,000 from Ryan.

A disused swimming pool at the front of the Nevay Rd property, listed for sale earlier this week. (File photo)

After buying the Caledonia St house, Ryan discovered Terry Serepisos still living there with his mother. He attempted to enter the house – resulting in a skirmish that ended in a police callout.

The dispute later went to the Wellington District Court. Eventually, the family moved out, decamping to the Nevay Rd property.

Property records show the home later passed into the ownership of the Serepisos family, this time via Terry and brother Lambros, before swiftly transferring to Black Robin, along with the Camperdown Rd property.

Terry Serepisos claimed not to be living at the residence when approached outside the Miramar home on Wednesday.

Ownership of that home was due to revert back to his family, he said – as per the terms of an agreement between Black Robin and a family trust.

That agreement stipulated the home would return to the trust if resource consent for a new development on the land was not granted within 18 months of the contract being signed, in early 2021.

Black Robin did not respond to questions about the nature of any contractual relationships with the trust.

No resource consent for the planned Miramar development was ever granted.

Windsor BRE, another Black Robin company, is also in liquidation. It owned the Camperdown Rd property, which was sold in a mortgagee sale last December.

When Serepisos was attempting to re-purchase the former jewel of his empire – Century City Hotel – Black Robin was involved in an early configuration of the deal, NBR previously reported.

The Serepisos entity involved in that deal is now in receivership.

The Nevay Rd property was earlier listed with some unusual sales conditions: no viewings and no guarantee the house was even habitable.

“We have not been on to the property, nor seen inside the home,” the listing read.

Tommy’s Real Estate listing agent Billy Bell confirmed the house was “temporarily withdrawn” from sale shortly before deadline.

There were several bids from potential buyers while the listing was active.

Grant understood neither party stood to benefit if the house was sold and they had therefore reached a compromise – but said he was not privy to its details.

Serepisos declined to comment on the terms of this agreement.

Correction: An earlier reference to the Serepisoses being declared squatters at the Tenancy Tribunal has been removed. Story amended 4.34pm, July 8. The name of the road, Camperdown, has been corrected.