Home sale tops $2m in fallout from fraud

The hammer fell yesterday on the homes of two former Pioneer Insurance shareholders forced to sell their houses.
Properties of shareholders John Gifford and Rob Elvidge were part of the fallout of the multimillion-dollar fraud committed by businessman Blair Fitzsimons in Napier.
Gifford's palatial four-bedroom home, which sits on 19.9ha of prime Tukituki Valley land, fetched $2,005,000, while fellow former shareholder Rob Elvidge's Louis Hay-designed property on Bluff Hill, sold at $576,000.
Fitzsimons, who stole more than $4 million from Pioneer Insurance shareholders, was sentenced in October last year to 4 1/2 years' jail and ordered to repay $250,000.
Mr Elvidge had earlier applied for an injunction to stop the ASB Bank from staging a mortgagee sale.
Shareholders argued their predicament was due to the bank's failure to protect their money from fraud, but Justice Simon France determined there was no "credible" basis for the injunction.
Auctioneer Simon Tremain said the auctioning of the two mortgagee sales was a "difficult situation" for Tremains. "We're just hoping to maximise the sales for both the bank and the vendors in this case," he said.
Both Mr Gifford and Mr Elvidge declined to comment after yesterday's auction.