KEY POINTS:
Andrea and Dennis Clough of Tauranga dreamed of tootling around New Zealand in a big motor home.
Instead, the money they managed to squirrel away for their funerals is being eaten into.
Andrea, 54, and Dennis, 62, were major investors in companies associated with the New Zealand franchisee of Blue Chip, a move they expected to yield richly within four years.
But now 19 companies have gone into liquidation, they are wondering about their investments and if they will get money owed.
Liquidator Jeff Meltzer cannot give any initial estimates on assets or liabilities of the 19 companies until he completes a full investigation.
The Cloughs have been worried for weeks. Without rental income from two upmarket Auckland properties for many weeks, they are being forced to use the $10,000 they scrimped and saved to put into a National Bank account so the family wouldn't have to pay expenses when they died.
"The mortgages on our properties are roughly our whole earnings," a desperate Mrs Clough said yesterday. "It's been very stressful for us because we're having to use almost all our earnings and money in the bank put aside for our funerals."
Bribanc was the property manager meant to pay them the rent. But that all stopped last year. However, the automatic bank payments for their three mortgages continued at the usual relentless pace.
That caused them a cash flow crisis.
So they have had to tip personal savings and their own wages into the schemes to keep up with the various bank automatic payments. They are now servicing three mortgages from earnings and savings: one to an Australian bank, another to the BNZ and a third to National Bank.
Mrs Clough, a part-time information services worker, and Mr Clough a labourer/driver, bought apartment 353, a studio unit in Hobson St's Heritage Hotel with a carpark for $240,000.
They also bought apartment 35, another studio, at Gulf Harbour for $190,000. All up, they spent $430,000, most borrowed after mortgaging their family home which previously had only a small mortgage.
By the end of last month they were owed $2828.90 on the Gulf Harbour unit. They had to pay $1084 in rates but have bills outstanding of $2774.26 body corporate fees and special levies of $4622.63 - amounts meant to be covered by steady rent.
Rental arrears on the Heritage unit were $3201.46 at the end of last month. They hope to get control of the rent income and channel it into their own bank accounts.
