Cannabis dealer in EQC fight
A major cannabis dealer who had his luxury cars seized is in a legal fight with the earthquake commission over a property that he may have to forfeit anyway.
After buying a quake-damaged home on Kellys Rd, Mairehau, through auction in August 2013, Antony Thomas Coles took EQC to court four years later claiming it was negligent in its assessment of the damage and subsequent repairs.
He claimed $564,966 in damages from EQC, which he said was the real cost to repair.
Coles, 49, alleged that EQC breached its duty of care to him to take reasonable care when assessing the extent of earthquake damage and scope of repairs.
The house was valued at $630,000 in August 2022.
The case had been making its way through the courts until it hit a roadblock.
In October 2020, police raided a number of properties owned by Coles including the Kellys Rd property and one next door. Officers found cash and dozens of high-quality cannabis plants.
Officers were carrying filters and lamps from the house and stacking them on the property, alongside rubbish bags full of what appeared to be cannabis.
Coles was believed to be living next door which had several cars, a boat and pool in the backyard. He was arrested along with three others, and was charged.
Three luxury cars including a red Ferrari 360 Spider – one of only six in the country – a black Lamborghini Huracan and a yellow Lamborghini Gallardo, one of just eight in New Zealand, were seized as part of the same investigation after police were tipped off by a member of the public.
The cars are believed to be worth about $500,000 in total and were restrained, along with the bulk of Coles’ assets, including at least $1.2 million worth of property.
With his assets under restraint, Coles could not afford the legal fees to pursue his EQC claim, and various court dates were vacated.
His criminal case progressed, and eventually he pleaded guilty to cannabis dealing offences and was sentenced in February last year.
After Coles’ guilty pleas, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue filed forfeiture proceedings for his assets – including the Kellys Rd house and cars – in June.
In November, the Commissioner released Coles’ funds to him to allow him to run his EQC case.
But when EQC learned of this, its lawyers filed for the claim to be temporarily stayed (delayed) until the forfeiture case against Coles was determined.
Whether the forfeiture proceeding or Coles’ EQC claim (set to be heard in July) should be heard first was then assessed in a recently released judgment by Associate Judge Dale Lester.
Lawyers for EQC sought that the case be put on hold until the forfeiture was determined, while Coles wanted it to go ahead as planned.
EQC’s argument in a nutshell was that if the house was forfeited, then Coles could have suffered no loss and his negligence claim must fail or, at the very least, the
damages based on costs to repair could not be recovered.
Whatever the house’s state of repair and whatever repairs EQC did or did not do, if the house was forfeited to the Crown then that was a practical end to Coles’ claim, they said.
There was a danger of two judges reaching different conclusions on the same point (the merits of the forfeit application) if the EQC claim was made first.
In opposition, Coles alleged there were no “common threads” between the two proceedings. Associate Judge Lester said he did not accept that.
Coles would be prejudiced by further delay, the associate judge said, but he concluded that delaying his claim against EQC avoided the risk of inconsistent decisions and evidential complications.
Equally, EQC had been subject to some delays throughout the case, the associate judge said. “I consider the desirability of avoiding the possibility of inconsistent outcomes and the complications that forfeiture represents for the July hearing, means the July hearing should be vacated and Mr Coles’ proceeding being subject to a purely administrative stay.”
The owner of the property at the time of the quakes made an original claim to EQC relating to damage to the house. EQC’s assessment of the damage was made available to Coles when he purchased the home a couple of years later.
The repairs were carried out after he purchased the house.
Coles’ hearing against EQC, which was set down for three weeks, was to be allocated a new date in the near future.
The forfeiture application would be heard in the interim.