Search goes off rails
A bankruptcy trustee’s mission to Fiji has encountered the case of the light-fingered caretaker
IT’S the case of the aggrieved Peter Drake caretaker who indeed became a “taker”.
The bankruptcy trustee for the founder of the failed Gold Coast-based LM funds management group flew to Fiji a few weeks back on a mission to get control of the Drake holiday house.
He motored out to the upmarket Oneva estate at Savusavu on Fiji’s second-largest island of Vanua Levu to inspect the Drake property, which spans two titles and is called Vatutolutolu.
The locals call the house Vesi Palace because it has been built of timber from the increasingly rare Vesi tree.
It comes with a tennis court, games room and pool and enjoys views of the ocean from its elevated site.
The trustee, one Jason Bettles from Worrells, might well have had an empty feeling when he stepped on to the neglected property.
As he’s recounted to Drake creditors, the house had been stripped of its furniture and certain fittings.
He chased down the former caretaker and she admitted taking furniture, artwork and other things from the property. Some had been sold and some were kept for her own use.
The justification she gave for her actions was that the items were part payment for “securing, preserving and maintaining” the property.
A report instigated by the bankruptcy trustee subsequently has gone to the Fiji police alleging the theft of the items.
Alas, there was more to come as a result of the Bettles burrowing.
Searches via Fijian authorities revealed that Peter Drake was the registered owner of a 2008 Mazda BT50 vehicle, something he hadn’t disclosed in his statement of affairs when he filed for bankruptcy.
It emerged, in meetings with the caretaker and her son, that they’d kept the vehicle in “part payment” of money they allegedly were owed.
They wouldn’t return the Mazda or disclose where it was.
So yes, another report went into the Fijian police, this one over the alleged theft of the vehicle.
The Bettles mission to Fiji was funded by a major Drake creditor – apparently there’s no money in the till that is the bankrupt’s estate.
The trustee’s end game is to sell the house for the benefit of creditors, who range from the ANZ Bank to the Australian Taxation Office and Drake restaurant company Lauxes.
First of all, the property titles have to be transferred to the trustee and doing that is proving far from smooth sailing.
It seems that in today’s market the property might be worth $US750,000 ($A1 million) plus. Two years ago, before foreign investment rules were changed in Fiji, it may well have brought $US250,000 more, according to a local.
THE HOUSE HAD BEEN STRIPPED OF ITS FURNITURE AND CERTAIN FITTINGS.