Sir Nga¯tata’s house for sale
The sprawling beachfront home at the centre of the illegal payment which brought down Sir Nga¯tata Love is up for sale, as part of a bid to recover money for his victims.
Harcourts has listed for sale 12 Moana Road in Plimmerton, promoted as a ‘‘much admired prime waterfront property’’.
The listing makes no mention of the history of the site, which is being sold by the Official Assignee under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act to protect the value in the face of rising mortgage arrears, for a possible payment to Love’s victims.
Described on property records as a ‘‘1990s superior dwelling’’ of more than 430 square metres, the property sits on 1985 square metres of beachfront land on Karehana Bay, with views of Mana Island.
It has a rateable value of $1.87 million, marginally more than the $1.8m which Love and his former partner Lorraine Skiffington paid for it in 2006.
Love was jailed in late 2016 after a High Court trial found him guilty of obtaining by deception funds which rightly belonged to the Wellington Tenths Trust, at a time when he was chair of the Maori trust, and one of the most powerful figures in Maoridom.
The trail went ahead after years of legal wrangling, culminating in a process to determine whether Love, who was suffering from dementia, should stand trial.
It was ultimately determined he would face a single charge, with a series of other charges related to other transactions in his capacity as chairman of the Tenths Trust and the Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust dropped.
The High Court trial covered how Love arranged for a payment of around $1.4m from developers wanting to build on Tenths Trust land to be made to a company owned by his then partner, Skiffington.
The money was meant to be used to assist the cash-strapped trust to undertake work required to conduct the sale.
Love’s fellow trustees testified in court that they only learned of the payment through a High Court judgement following the trial of Skiffington’s accountants, who were jailed for tax fraud.
After being funnelled through a Wellington accountancy firm, the money was quickly used to pay down the loan on 12 Moana Road, which the couple had recently jointly purchased.
Love and Skiffington lived together in the Moana Road house until early 2016, despite insisting during the trial that there relationship was never sexual.
Love was released from jail around the time of his 80th birthday in September.
Skiffington, who was granted a stay of prosecution on account of her ill health, died in September, aged 59.
Her death came several months after the High Court ordered the couple’s former home be sold, in the face of mounting arrears on the house. According to the July court order, the mortgage on the property was around $1 million, with arrears of about $96,000.
The Moana Road property is due to be sold at auction on December 14.
Assuming the house is sold, Westpac will be repaid the money it is owed, with the balance held by the Official Assignee, pending court proceedings to determine whether the remainder should be paid to Love’s victims.