Fight for bankrupt’s palatial Fiji property
week, said if the obstacles to taking possession of the Fiji house, which overlooks the ocean and has a tennis court and pool, were overcome, he hoped to have the six-bedroom property on the market by the end of the year.
He was in the process of having the property valued.
The house is in an elite enclave in the town of Savusavu, on Fiji’s second-largest island.
It was built for Mr Drake more than a decade ago and an adjoining lot was bought to house the tennis court and a games room.
The businessman opted for bankruptcy in January 2015 in the wake of his Surfers Paradise-based LM group foundering and he declared unsecured debts of $342 million.
Mr Bettles, from Worrells Solvency and Forensic Accountants, was appointed his bankruptcy trustee.
He said a major creditor was funding the trustee’s actions over the Fiji house in the hope that it would be sold “for the benefit of creditors”.
He said Mr Drake maintained he was holding the Fiji house as a trustee of a trust on behalf of his three children.
The bankruptcy trustee claimed Mr Drake’s name was on the property title and there was no mention of a trust so Fijian law recognised Mr Drake as the home’s beneficial owner.
The bankruptcy trustees, to take title to the house, were seeking the original certificates of title from the ANZ Bank and Mr Drake’s former Fijian solicitor.
“Both the ANZ and the solicitor have refused to release the certificates without Mr Drake’s written consent, which he has refused to give, potentially in breach of the Bankruptcy Act,” Mr Bettles said.
“We are considering lodging an objection to Mr Drake’s automatic discharge from bankruptcy, and an offence referral to the government regulator.”
Mr Bettles said Mr Drake’s daughter, Dhanika Gates, wanted the house transferred into her name, as she had turned 18, and his ex-wife, Mrs Belinda Gates, was claiming an interest in it.