Hamish McNeilly/Stuff
Stephen Anderson bought the family farm off of his parents for a nominal amount.
Stephen Anderson made a promise to his parents that he would try and recover the family farm.
But his lengthy legal journey through New Zealand’s justice system has ended with that promise unfulfilled.
‘’I’ve taken it as far as I can,’’ the 68-year-old self-represented litigant, said.
His almost four-decade long legal battle for the 669 acre property at Mt Barker, just outside of Wānaka, ended this week with a decision from the Supreme Court – the highest court in the country.
“As that farm had been in his family since the 1880s, its sale has evidently caused Mr Anderson enduring upset,’’ that decision noted.
Anderson accepted that decision, and said: ‘’The courts were very gracious and gave me the time of day … I am most impressed with them.’’
Anderson was the fourth generation of his family to farm the property, which he estimated would be worth around $50 million today, after buying it for a nominal sum from his parents. But a move to reinvest in the largely wheat-growing property resulted in him securing an offshore loan for $500,000, via NZI Finances. But crippling interest payments meant he struggled to repay those debts, and he was advised by his then lawyer to go bankrupt.
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Stephen Anderson visits his former family farm at Mt Barker, near Wanaka.
He made the difficult decision to put the farm up for auction – days before the 1987 stockmarket crash – but NZI took over the auction, and in 1988 it was sold for $745,000, around $155,000 short of his reserve.
That led Anderson to promise his mother and father, who have both since died, that he would try and recover money for his creditors and recover that family farm.
That promise led him to file various application with the High Court, Court of Appeal, and finally the Supreme Court.
He unsuccessfully argued that his former bank had downgraded his one main asset, the family farm, thus disadvantaging his creditors who were ‘’caught in the whole unfortunate set of events’’.
Anderson wanted his creditors, some of whom were family friends, paid back with interest, and the farm’s five land tiles returned.
But this week the Supreme Court delivered a judgment which dismissed his leave to appeal application.
‘’I am sorry for my creditors that I was not in the very least able to see them compensated.’’
The Supreme Court, who Anderson appeared in person before, noted in its decision that it was his third application for leave to appeal by him ‘’to breathe life into the extinct 1987 proceedings’’.
It decided that ‘’it is not necessary in the interests of justice to hear and determine the proposed appeal’’.
Hamish McNeilly/Stuff
Stephen Anderson of Dunedin is fighting over the loss of a family farm in Wānaka.
That involved no matter of general or public importance, nor was there likelihood of a substantial miscarriage of justice if the proposed appeal was not heard.
Anderson, who moved to Dunedin about 2000 kept himself occupied by studying at University of Otago, including law and accounting papers, was pleased he was able to ‘’test the system’’.
‘’This basically ends it for me.’’
