Driveway battle goes to court

A $1 deal a businessman made to use a private driveway to access his land, only to damage it with heavy vehicles, has been found to be illegal.

Ron Okey ended up in the High Court in Palmerston North to fight for use of the driveway, after the daughter of the man he made the original deal with applied to the court to have the $1 contract extinguished.

Okey has now lost use of the driveway, after Justice Helen Cull ruled his agreement to use it was illegal.

According to the judgment, the case has its origin in the early 1980s, when Okey purchased a chunk of Palmerston North land from Don Kingsbeer.

An informal arrangement existed, where Okey could use a private road of Kingsbeer’s, Cessna Place, described in the judgment as a driveway, to get vehicles to that land.

Okey wanted to build a warehouse, but the Palmerston North City Council required him to have legal access to Cessna Place.

Okey drew up agreements with Kingsbeer to use the driveway.

Okey paid $1 in August 2009 to have legal right of way to his land via Cessna Place.

According to the judgment, Kingsbeer was 83 years old and ‘‘frail’’ at the time.

Okey did build the warehouse, but didn’t let Kingsbeer know what was going on or what the council wanted.

A company leased the warehouse from 2010 to 2013, during which time large commercial trucks used Cessna Place.

Issues arose, mainly because people felt Okey’s tenants were causing significant damage to the road.

Okey tried to get the right of way put on a title on Kingsbeer’s land, which was transferred to a trust when he died in 2012, but the state of the road meant that could not happen.

Okey had work done on the driveway to patch it up, but it never reached the council’s standard.

Kingsbeer’s trust got quotes for doing up the road, but Okey never responded to them.

Don Kingsbeer’s daughter Pauline Kingsbeer argued her father had no idea how big the warehouse was going to be.

She pointed to instructions left by her father, in which he said ‘‘the roadway is on our title, so is legally ours ... and keep it that way’’.

If she was unsuccessful in getting the contract extinguished, she wanted Okey to pay for fixing the road to the council’s standard.

Okey denied any liability, and asked the court to make orders ensuring the $1 contract remained in place.

He also said the Kingsbeer trust had an obligation to provide an adequate and appropriate roadway.

But the judge said Okey did not keep Kingsbeer informed.

‘‘Given his age and frailty, it is evident that [Don Kingsbeer] was not fully aware of the extent of the proposed warehouse that Mr Okey intended to build, or of the consequential heavy traffic flow following the completion of the building.’’