Unknown future for troubled campground

 

BY JULIA WADE

Residents of a locally owned campground are now facing an uncertain future as the company who was responsible for the management of their park has filed for liquidation.

Mangawhai Management Ltd (MML) who oversee approximately 68 sites at Mangawhai Holiday Park on Moir Street, was placed into liquidation on June 8 by the High Court. 

Liquidators Rodewald Consulting Ltd logged their first report on July 9 and the firm are now seeking people who would be interested in acquiring the management rights which Rodewald currently hold.

In a statement Rodewald’s Insolvency Manager Kieran Jones says ‘We understand the company, which has been operating quite successfully for a number of years… has been placed into liquidation due to an unpaid debt to the former park manager’.

Sites at the park are owned independently by the residents who each hold a share in the land. MML does not own any of the property but holds the right to manage the park which includes the upkeep of the sites and facilities and, to make a profit, charges the site owners a levy. 

The park was formerly managed by D&N Management Ltd, before they walked off the job in early April after not receiving any money from MML since September 2017, and applied for the liquidation due to the $30,000 owed in back-wages. 

The reasons for non-payment is allegedly due to a shareholder dispute between MML directors Gerald Davies and Michael Woodward. 

The liquidation comes after a long-running and ongoing dispute between MML and the parks long-term residents, many who have lived on the grounds full-time and for over ten years, and established an association, EUO71MOIR Inc. [EUO] in 2016. 

EUO treasurer and resident for two years, Carolyn Dymock says the holiday park was bought by company Mangawhai Park Ltd ‘a few years ago’ and then directors formed MML Ltd to manage the park.

“The association was formed so that the residents as a whole had a legal voice as they had suspected that the park was being run in a way that was unfair to the residents,” she says. “In April 2017 when the levy accounts came out, they were $800 more than what they had been the previous year and the residents thought that was excessive.”

In good faith, residents agreed to pay the directors half of the levy charge, paying the balance once MML provided financial statements to verify how money from previous levies was spent. 

Dymock says the residents only received a response from the two directors after they ‘ran out of money some months later’, ‘advising’ the residents that they now had to cough-up the remaining total. 

“We said we would not pay till we saw the books and after that things stopped happening in the park. The bills were not paid and even the managers stopped getting their wages,” she says. “It was a stalemate but we stuck to our guns even when the pool went green then black and the lawns started to get knee length.”

Although residents had sporadic communication with the directors, Dymock says it was complicated due to the ongoing dispute between them, ‘one would say yes, the other would say no’.

The parks residents have banded together to keep their homegrounds running, establishing an Essential Services Fund which they all pay into, for power, sewage and water treatment. 

Last December, the group had to raise enough money to pay for the sewage system to be cleared after becoming blocked, although they had to pay cash to the sewer cleaners because the directors had not paid previous bill, Dymock says.

“As it stands now, we are faced with the prospect of buying the management rights ourselves or risk someone else sensing a profit to be made by buying the rights and upping the levies yet again,” she says. “As most of the residents are pensioners with limited income, this has put them in a very difficult position.” 


Park residents have banded together to keep their homegrounds running.


“In April 2017 when the levy accounts came out, they were $800 more than what they had been the previous year and the residents thought that was excessive.”
- Carolyn Dymock