Agents marketing a multimillion-dollar Auckland apartment, owned by self-titled “queen of property” Nikki Connors, held a kerbside open home viewing on Sunday morning after the property was listed as a mortgagee sale.
The two-bedroom apartment in Ōrākei was listed for sale with Barfoot & Thompson at the beginning of June and is set to be auctioned on June 26.
A handful of people who turned up for the viewing stood on the kerb speaking to a real estate agent outside the apartment, despite not being able to see it from the road.
The real estate agent would not say why the viewing had changed from an open home viewing to a kerbside one.
The two real estate agents marketing the property, listed on Barfoot & Thompson’s website, would not provide any comment when contacted by the Herald.
Barfoot & Thompson has also been contacted.
It comes after Connors told OneRoof on Friday she had signed a sale and purchase agreement with a buyer last week for $2.25 million, but the mortgagee, a major bank, had refused to remove advertising for the sale.
The due diligence period for the buyer ended on Friday, Connors said.
She told OneRoof she was still living at the property and it had gone to a mortgagee sale because of issues with another trustee.
Documents show that at the beginning of the month, Connors was still named as the property’s owner alongside a trustee company.
“Here’s the thing, when we told the [bank] this and we sent them all of the documentation, they refused to halt the advertising,” Connors toldOneRoof.
Nikki Connors (right) with then-Prime Minister Sir John Key and Kerry Cattrall-Ward at Auckland Cup Day in 2009.
“I sent the info to the [bank] two weeks ago to say, ‘This is what is now happening and now I can make decisions on behalf of the trust, and we have this purchaser and they know who the purchaser is and their ability to purchase the property’. And they still refused and it’s been sold at valuation, which is $2.25m. Why would they want to impact on that?”
Last month, BusinessDesk reported Connors was facing an asset-freezing order after giving up her bid for name suppression.
After interest payments were not made when they became due in March and the principal wasn’t repaid in July, Smart Living applied for a without notice freezing order against Connors, her Primrose Trust and Metropolis Real Estate, which is in liquidation.
When Justice Robert Osborne granted the order on December 14 last year, he noted there was evidence Connors may have a “lavish lifestyle”.
According to the judgment, Connors told a journalist in May she was looking at buying a second home in France, “where she usually spends time each year”.
“The prospect of a significant dissipation of assets is real,” the judge said in his ruling.
