“The property is unsecured,” he told attendees. “We can’t guarantee anything in terms of the condition of the property. So you’re buying strictly on an ‘as is’ basis.”
After an opening bid of just $100,000, prospective buyers traded frantic bids over about 30 minutes.
It went “on the market” at $575,000 before selling for a winning bid of $610,000.
The Northcote property boasts views over the harbour and Auckland city.
While several of those vying for the property were among the 50 or so people who packed the auction room, the three-level home went to a phone bidder.
It is just the second property forcibly sold by the council for unpaid rates since the Super City was formed in 2010.
The first belonged to Charlotte Hareta Marsh, who lost her Manurewa home of 20 years in 2015 over a $12,000 debt after failing to pay rates for nine years.
‘Exhaustive efforts’ undertaken to find owner
Council group chief financial officer Ross Tucker said “exhaustive efforts” had been made to speak to the owner, Choi Wu, who is understood to be living overseas.
Rates were last paid on the property in 2005. The unpaid bill had ballooned to $219,946.99 as of July 2023, including interest and penalties.
The council would not disclose the current rating debt.
Property records show the home, which is part of a block of flats, was last sold in 1996 for $438,000.
Its latest council valuation is $1.025 million.
“We have undertaken extensive efforts to speak with the property owner over many years,” Tucker.
“Despite that, we haven’t been able to make contact.”
The council always made extensive efforts to contact and work with property owners in cases of unpaid rates.
“We do not proceed with a rating sale lightly, but it can be the only option in isolated, long-running cases where we haven’t been able to contact owners or otherwise resolve it.
“Unfortunately, when rates go unpaid for extended periods, the cost is ultimately carried by other ratepayers. It is important that outstanding rates are recovered, so we are being fair to the thousands of Aucklanders who do pay their rates.”
The property is down a private driveway and part of a block of flats. The owner last made a full rates payment in 2005. Photo / Google Maps
Tucker said all attempts to speak to the owner had been unsuccessful, apart from one instance.
“Despite a short period of email correspondence in 2023 and unverifiable claims from third parties purporting to act on the owner’s behalf, no payment plan has been established and no material payments have been received.”
Private investigator hired to track Choi Wu
A timeline provided by the council shows officials were in contact with tenants and a property manager between 2006 and 2012, but neither had authority to address the rates arrears.
In May 2014, the council hired a private investigator to track Wu before launching legal proceedings the following month, and registering a charging order against the property title in 2015.
“New information about the property’s appropriate legal categorisation then emerged, which halted court proceedings while the council worked through associated legal details.”
In 2021, the council applied to the district court to sell the property as abandoned land.
However, after posting a public notice in January 2023, the council received correspondence from a person purporting to be Choi Wu, which prevented the land from being treated as abandoned.
The property has been marketed by Barfoot & Thompson and was sold by auction today under the direction of the High Court.
Tucker said proceeds from the sale would be used to recover the full amount of outstanding rates, penalties and associated costs, including real estate agency and legal fees.
The remainder of the proceeds would be released to the owner or held in trust until claimed.
Anyone concerned about paying their rates was encouraged to get in touch to discuss assistance options.
These included a government-funded rates rebate scheme, a rates postponement scheme for residential properties, and flexible payment options.
Other forced sales abandoned; cafe owner reached settlement, another owner discovered dead
Auckland Council struck a settlement in April last year with controversial cafe owner Dilip Kumar Rupa, whose family owed a whopping $900,000 in overdue rates and penalties.
The debt had grown to be the city’s single largest. The settlement meant the council would no longer pursue a forced rating sale of the Freemans Bay eatery Rupa’s Cafe and two Grey Lynn homes owned by the Rupa family.
Auckland Council was unable to contact the owners of this house in Guthrey Place, Ōtara, to arrange payment of outstanding rates and penalties totalling more than $300,000. Photo / Jason Oxenham
In August 2024, an imminent forced sale of an Ōtara home was abandoned at the 11th hour after council officials learned the owner was dead.
The Guthrey Place house was set to be sold over an unpaid rates bill of $317,000. At the time, it was the city’s longest-owed outstanding rates bill. No payments had been made since March 2005.
The council had tried for years to contact the owner and arrange repayment, without success.
However, after coverage in the Herald, the court-ordered auction was abandoned when relatives of the property’s owner, Joseph William Leef, contacted council officials to tell them Leef was dead.
The only successful compulsory rating sale in the Super City occurred in 2015 when Charlotte Hareta Marsh lost her home after failing to pay rates for nine years.
Charlotte Marsh at her former home in Manurewa before it was forcibly sold by Auckland Council. She had refused to pay rates arrears of more than $12,000. Photo / Dean Purcell
Despite repeated warnings, she refused to recognise the authority of Auckland Council and claimed to have paid her rates instead to the “rightful land owner”, Arikinui o Tuhoe, a self-proclaimed sovereign authority.
Marsh owed more than $12,000 in rates and penalties at the time and nearly $3000 in court costs.
The late activist Penny Bright’s 11-year refusal to pay rates nearly cost her her Kingsland home in the months before her death.
The council went to court to have Bright’s home forcibly sold to recoup tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid rates and penalties, and it was listed for sale in April 2017.
But in May that year, a deal was struck after Bright applied for a rates postponement and the forced sale proceedings were halted.
Lane Nichols is Auckland desk editor for the New Zealand Herald, with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
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