Lodge owner dies homeless and broke after being evicted

Wednesday, 5 June 2024

Peter Van De Wiel died homeless and broke after being evicted from Auckland’s Parnell City Lodge, which he owned and managed for 14 years.

Van De Wiel died in hospital last month, ten days after his 79th birthday.

Friends and family say a five-year legal battle over his lease with the Anglican Diocese of Auckland took a huge toll on his health.

A man who was evicted from his business and home following a five-year legal battle with the Anglican Diocese in Auckland has died from an illness his accountant says was exacerbated by stress.

Peter Van De Wiel died on May 18, ten days after his 79th birthday.

Van De Wiel was evicted from his Parnell City Lodge and was issued a trespass notice on February 14.

Van De Wiel, who had lived at the lodge for 14 years, was marched out by four court bailiffs and two police officers after he refused to obey a High Court order made after he lost his battle with the Diocese.

The High Court ruled in favour of the General Trust Board of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland, which owns the land beneath the lodge and was in dispute with Van De Wiel over lease payments.

It was the culmination of a five-year dispute between De Wiel, who owned the building, and the Trust Board.

The Board had raised the annual rental in 2019, but Van De Wiel refused to pay it and also refused to pay more than $1million he owed in arrears.

Van De Wiel left the lodge with a couple of bags full of clothes and lived in a motel before being admitted to hospital in early May.

Van De Wiel’s accountant Michael Elliott said the legal battle with the Diocese had been incredibly stressful for Van De Wiel and he felt it had definitely contributed to his ill health in recent years.

Elliott, who had been Van De Wiel’s accountant for about 15 years, said Peter and his late wife Alice used to stay in the lodge decades ago when they lived in Wellington and would come to Auckland on holiday.

“It was his retirement dream to run that lodge. He also wanted to move somewhere warmer for his wife, but sadly she got ill and died before they could make the move,” Elliott said.

“I think it was more a heart-felt decision to buy the lodge than a business decision,” he said.

“Over the last few years there wasn’t really a day that went by that he didn’t ring me. He was a very likeable guy. He could certainly be stubborn, but also very focussed. That’s probably why he was a successful businessman,” he said.

“Rightly or wrongly he decided to go with emergency housing when Covid hit and and the hotel/motel scene hit the skids. That wasn’t easy, dealing with the sort of people he had stay there. He had to get the police around quite often, and there was a lot of damage done, with TVs smashed and holes in walls and so on. He was kept busy,” he said.

“He wasn’t one of those who took the government for millions and didn’t do much for it. He wasn’t one of those,” he said.

Elliott said any value the lodge had would be exceeded by arrears, meaning Van De Wiel’s estate was likely to be worthless.

Kerry Balchin who lived at the lodge for five years until 2017 and stayed in close touch with Van De Wiel until his death, said he was “one hell of a man”.

“We formed a close bond. He was a hard-working, compassionate man, who didn’t stand for any nonsense. I used to call him ‘the old scrote’. I had a lot of respect for that man,” she said.

“He was put under so much pressure and stress over the lease. He always kept me up to date with it. It was awful,” Balchin said.

Van De Wiel had four sons and two daughters and more than 30 grandchildren.

His son Robert said Peter had arrived in New Zealand as a child from Netherlands with his parents and was raised in Timaru.

He became a boilermaker after leaving school and the family moved around country for years before settling in Wellington in the early 1980s.

“He worked his whole life. He was a very hard worker and, being a Dutchman, he saved every penny. He was a top bloke and a great father. He was always very supportive,” Robert said.

He said his father had been greatly impacted by stress over the past few years.

“It wasn’t that long ago that he was a millionaire. When I packed him up to say my goodbyes he had a couple of bags of Warehouse clothes,” Robert said.

He said his father died due to heart and organ failure.

In an interview with Stuff earlier this year Peter Van De Wiel said the business had been profitable until Covid-19.

“We are only looking after the poor and the homeless usually. People who have nowhere else to go. But that’s come to an end because Work and Income don’t seem to want anyone staying here any more,” he said.

He said the lodge had no lodgers at present and the last people staying there, a couple, left last week without paying.

The lodge stopped taking guests around the end of last year.

The lodge became the source of complaints and concerns by locals after it began providing emergency housing accommodation in mid-2018.

The Parnell Business Association annual report for 2018/19 said the impact had been immediate with “wave after wave of undesirable residents introduced into Parnell, who preyed on the retailers or loitered around hospo patrons” and “many of the residents have drug or drinking issues, are out on parole or demonstrate their expertise at petty crime within hours of arrival”.

Information obtained under the Official Information Act from the Ministry of Social Development showed the lodge had received $2,632,691 in about 2300 Emergency Housing Special Needs Grants between January 1, 2018 and September 30, 2023.

The Trust Board was contacted for comment.