Bowling club land flipped
It was sold twice in one day - with a $525,000 price hike.
An investigation has been launched after land from a struggling Auckland bowling club was flipped for half a million dollars.
The Avondale Bowling Club was in financial trouble when it approached club member Aaron Drever about urgently selling one of its greens to raise funds.
Drever, a disgraced and struckoff real estate agent, helped organise the land sale in December 2016.
Records show the land was sold to his aunt Beverley Spain for $300,000, and then flicked on the same day to property investor Jonathan Michell for $825,000.
Bowling club president Pat Bell told the District Licensing Committee (DLC) in August 2017 the club sold the land for $300,000.
This was less than half of its two-year-old rateable value of $710,000, and in the midst of a heated property market.
‘‘He was a pretty good talker,’’ Bell said about Drever in August. ‘‘I think we might have made a huge mistake.’’
Club treasurer Rhianne Tippett told the DLC the club’s committee appointed Drever to get someone he knew to sell the land ‘‘and get us money quickly’’.
Michell said he initially thought he was buying the property from the club. But just before settlement his lawyer realised it was not being purchased from Avondale Bowling Club Inc, but from Avondale Bowling Club Limited. Avondale Bowling Club Limited was registered in the name of Aaron Drever’s aunt Beverley Spain two weeks earlier.
Spain lives in a Housing New Zealand property in Pt Chevalier, but the company was registered to an address across the road.
Stuff has been unable to contact Beverley Spain.
A Real Estate Agents Authority spokeswoman confirmed it was investigating the sale of Avondale Bowling Club’s green.
Michell said he had previously bought and sold property through Drever, when he was a licensed agent. ‘‘Obviously I wish I had never done this transaction,’’ he said, of the bowling club land sale.
‘‘Quite frankly mate, I’m a bit shocked. It’s not a game I knew I was participating in. Let’s put it that way.’’
Drever declined to comment for this story.
In August, when Stuff first enquired about the sale, Drever said there was no real estate agent involved as it was done through lawyers.
‘‘They [the club] asked whether I knew anybody that might be interested in purchasing that, and I said I would ask some people,’’ he said. ‘‘If they hadn’t have got any deal across the line when they did then there wouldn’t be a club there today.’’
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‘‘I think we might have made a huge mistake.’’
Club president Pat Bell