KEY POINTS:
Former multimillionaire property developer, reality television star and gossip column regular Pat Rippin has been bankrupted.
The bankruptcy order against him was made in the High Court at Auckland yesterday over a $250,000 debt. However, the court was told there were other creditors.
Mr Rippin starred in The Family, a fly-on-the-wall TV3 series about himself, his wife Denise, and their combined adult family of six. The 2003 show was dubbed New Zealand's version of The Osbornes.
Mr Rippin is a long-time property developer who started his career in Wellington over 35 years ago. His Markham Group is a descendant of publicly listed 1980s property high flyer Markham Developments.
The petitioning creditor at yesterday's bankruptcy hearing was Susan Bridgman, who runs an Orakei business, Moroccan Marquees.
She is the former partner of troubled multimillionaire property developer Mark Lyon, and was previously married to designer Keith Matheson. She said, "No, no comment, sorry" and hung up when the Herald called yesterday.
Mr Rippin has been known for giving lavish parties, and regularly appears in the social pages alongside Auckland A-listers.
Calls to his numbers went unanswered and the Markham Group's line was dead.
Pat Rippin's accountant, Donald Gibson, said he held 100 per cent of the shares in Markham Group in trust, and could not discuss his client's affairs.
Markham Group developed Gisborne's Portside Hotel in 2004 and Parkwood Estate subdivision in Manukau in the late 1990s, but ran into problems with cracks in the houses and non-payment of agents and contractors.
In 2003 Mr Rippin upset Grey Lynn residents over his plans for 300 apartments around Surrey Crescent.
In 2005 he placed two of his companies, Mermaid Holdings - the vehicle for the Parkwood development - and Lemnos Holdings into voluntary liquidation days before Inland Revenue was scheduled to gain liquidation hearings over the entities' unpaid tax.
Mermaid creditors were owed $1.9 million.
