Abortive bid to halt farm sale

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 1

Abortive bid to halt farm sale

By

CHRIS TOBIN

in Timaru

A last-minute attempt to gain a High Court order to prevent a farm mortgagee sale in Timaru failed yesterday. The farm, 22 kilometres from Fairlie, was sold for $169,000 — $229,000 less than the latest Government valuation.

Solicitors, acting for Mr J. W. S. Richmond, unsuccessfully sought the High Court order, and the public auction was delayed for half an hour.

The auctioneers, Dalgety Crown, Ltd, opened the sale at $115,000 and allowed bids to rise $5OOO and then $lOOO. The Timaru manager of Pyne, Gould, Guinness Ltd, acting on behalf of the Hay family, of Fairlie, clinched the ’ sale at $169,000.

Mr Richmond bought Sherwood Downs, a 350 ha sheep station, with some cropping, from Mr C. W. Hay in 1981 for $365,000, with Mr Hay holding a second mortgage of $50,000. After yesterday’s sale, the property returns to the control of the Hay .family. O)Mr Hay’s son farms an adjoining property. The auction was at the request of the first mortgagee, Pyne, Gould, Guin-

ness Ltd. The company held a mortgage of $70,000 on the property, and early last month applied to the High Court in Timaru for the auction to proceed.

Mr Richmond now has 28 days before he and his mother, aged 82, have to quit the property. A single man in his early 50s, he said that he was taking yesterday’s events on the chin.

“I was a fisherman in my early years, working the southern coasts around the Fiordland Sounds. It was a tough life, and it was nothing to see thousands of dollars worth of equipment going in one night” As well as his fishing interests, Mr Richmond also owned a farm at Otekura, near Balclutha, before he sold up and moved to Fairlie five years ago. He estimates he was $200,000 in the red at the end, but he feels his position was not helped by the Rural Bank refusing drought assistance and seasonal finance. “I think I was a competent farmer, but you can’t be competent when you’ve not got the finance. I had no seasonal working capital for two seasons.”

Mr Richmond is not certain of what the future holds for him.