No forced sales for Blue Chip investors, say liquidators

5:00AM Friday April 25, 2008
By Maria Slade

Jeff Meltzer. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The tangled web of Blue Chip

• New offer to burnt investors
• Pay up or else, burned Blue Chip investors told

The Blue Chip liquidators say no investors in the failed property scheme have so far been forced into a mortgagee sale.

The Business Herald reported this week that Tasman Mortgages was sending out final demand notices to investors struggling as a result of their losses.

Tasman was once owned by Blue Chip Financial Solutions and lent to many people who took out mortgages on their homes to invest in Blue Chip.

Yesterday liquidators Meltzer Mason Heath said they had met one of the main funders of investors' loans and had been assured that no Property Law Act notices (the precursor to a mortgagee sale) had been issued.

However, the funder had sent out letters of default and had received numerous hardship applications. Some of these had been rejected.

The liquidators said they wanted to stress that troubled Blue Chip investors must get independent financial advice, and they could get free help by calling the Ministry of Commerce on 0508 197 150.

Once they received that advice they must put a proposal to their bank or funder.

The liquidators also made it clear that there was no pool of funds available from any of the Blue Chip companies in liquidation. They said while there might be small interim relief as early as next month, investors couldn't rely on that to solve their financial problems.