Divorce fight over block of land near airport

. . . [Susan] Heazlewood’s expectation of an interest in the Memorial Avenue property appears to have been lost.

A woman has lost an attempt to stake a claim on a controversial block of land near Christchurch Airport at the centre of a matrimonial dispute.

The Court of Appeal rejected Susan Heazlewood’s attempt to make a ‘‘notice of interest’’ on the property on the corner of Memorial Ave and Russley Rd but granted a similar request for another Russley Rd property.

Where granted, the notice acts like a caveat, preventing the transfer of property without Heazlewood’s involvement.

The two land parcels are part of an ownership dispute between Heazlewood and her husband, Graham Heazlewood.

The couple bought and sold many properties through trusts over their 25-year relationship. They separated temporarily in 2011 and permanently in 2013. Divorce proceedings are under way.

Susan Heazlewood claimed the ownership structure of the two properties in question was a ‘‘sham’’, that her husband controlled the trusts and the convoluted sales process of the land between them was ‘‘designed to defeat her interests’’.

The Memorial Ave property is part of a 25-hectare block at the centre of a longstanding development wrangle.

Graham Heazlewood hoped to build houses, or a large retail and office complex, on the land but was stymied by zoning rules. He erected a deer fence covered in black polythene on its boundary in 2003 in protest, earning the ire of neighbours, including the airport.

The Heazlewoods sold the property to businessman Frank van Schaijik through a family entity in 2008. Susan Heazlewood argued that entity simply held the land for her husband, who retained control, and that he made loan repayments on one of the mortgages used to buy it.

The court was ‘‘not persuaded that the sale . . . was not a bona fide transaction with a third party’’ and ‘‘it follows that . . . Mrs Heazlewood’s expectation of an interest in the Memorial Avenue property appears to have been lost’’.

‘‘We do not preclude the possibility that such interest will be established at trial, should she establish that Heazlewood family interests never surrendered beneficial ownership of the properties.’’

The Russley Rd property was sold in 2012 from one of the Heazlewoods’ trustee companies (Joie De Vivre Canterbury Ltd) to another (LNV Trustees Ltd). LNV held the property in trust for another family entity – Boulder Trust, one of six trusts set up since the couple first separated Susan Heazlewood was not a beneficiary of. She remained a beneficiary of other family trusts as long as she was married to her husband.

The court found Susan Heazlewood made an ‘‘active contribution’’ to the acquisition of other land that funded the purchase of the Russley Rd property and that the decision to transfer its ownership to Boulder was Graham Heazlewood’s alone. ‘‘Given that the trust was created at about the time the couple first separated, it is arguable that the transaction was designed to defeat her interests,’’ it said.