PAA attempts holiday homes vote 2.0
The PAA is taking its Holiday Home Legacy Trust deed to a vote again next week – but some members are still not happy.
Wednesday, May 30th 2018, 6:00AM 
6 Comments
by Susan Edmunds
The association’s members, including its own board, voted against the first version of the trust deed in December.
The trust was set up to handle the almost $2 million of proceeds of the sale of the PAA’s holiday homes. About half a million dollars has already been refunded to members who had contributed to the scheme in return for credits.
The next vote will take place on Friday week.
Adviser Geoff Wilson said not enough was being done to look after those advisers who had helped to contribute to the trust's millions.
“The PAA owned the houses and the members owned the credits then when the PAA sold the houses we were left with credits we could no longer use.
“The trust title is PAA Holiday Homes Legacy Trust. But there is no legacy available for members of the holiday home scheme. The title is a sham, and a weak effort to salve the guilty conscience of PAA board members, to justify their decision to separate those that contributed to the holiday homes from their capital.
“The board’s choice to name the trust the Holiday Homes Legacy Trust is an acknowledgement that they know that a debt exists towards these contributors.”
He said half of the fund’s earnings should be allocated for each of the next 10 years to provide for those who paid into the original scheme. That ight mean a subsidy towards association subs, payment of conference fees or a reunion of PAA members, he said.
“I believe most holders of holiday home credits would accept this situation. I see this as a solution to the ethical dilemma caused when the holidmay home members were deprived of their capital.
“There are many who do not believe that these recommendations go far enough. But also, as responsible and professional financial advisers we wish to see a strong industry in the future, and are comfortable about trust funds being used for the advancement of financial advice, under the new Financial Advice NZ structure.
"But morally and ethically, it is quite wrong for the PAA to abuse their superior membership numbers and deny any benefit/legacy for those who are responsible for the strong financial position the PAA finds itself in today.”
Wilson pointed to other issues with the trust deed.
“There seems to be potential conflict in some of the clauses as to how the board members are to conduct themselves. It is likely that the board members will be active in the industry. The purpose of the trust, amongst other things under clause 4, is to promote and educate financial advisers. But 10.5.3; 10.11.5 and 12.3 spell out very clearly that no board member may benefit from any decision made by the board. How do board members who are active in the industry avoid this conflict?”
Chief executive Rod Severn said he was optimistic that he trust deed would be supported.
A lot of time and effort had been spent redrafting it, he said, and those who had complaints should be happy with the new version.
“They’ve been compensated for what they put in. It was never a commercial deal. It was a privately run member benefit and as such they paid a minimal amount of money to get access to good properties.”
The trust is one of the issues that has to be settled before the PAA can be wound up.
| « Associations hang back from Financial Advice NZ | Mann on a mission to diversify financial advice » |
Special Offers
Comments from our readers
The new trust deed calls for a maximum of 5 trustees, and nominates Trevor Slater as the independent trustee and chairman. However, Rod Severn's covering letter advises that the new trust deed will have a minimum of 5 trustees, with the independent trustee as a professional trustee company.
Their woolly thinking is becoming a shambles.
There is a well funded body that has funding to promote the value of good advice, it's called the PAA. My understanding is that the IFA has virtually no money.
But Severn has just sent a message to PAA members telling them he is exiting stage left, assuming the members will be voting for the windup of the PAA. Funny how that whole thing gained its own momentum, yet members haven't voted on it yet. The members should be pulling their socks up and asking why Financial Advice New Zealand?
But the good folks running the hierarchy at the PAA have handed over large amounts of PAA money to FANZ, without asking members to do so. It's most likely that there has been a disproportionate amount of PAA money go into this compared to the IFA contributions.
Why should PAA members who contributed long and hard to the holiday homes, hand a couple of million dollars over to any other organisation?
Why should the PAA disappear. I think the members will be asking themselves that very question when they see the costs associated with the new organisation such as new P/I premiums and their benefits disappear.
Funny world we live in.
In closing the scheme they compensated members for the many hundreds of holiday home nights owned by members worth maybe $200 night with a derisory average of around $28 each night, and now are making no provision in the trust deed to in any way benefit the past scheme members who paid for the homes in the first place.
I suspect that for many past members of PAA the organisation's demise will be welcomed as we will no longer be reminded of this shameful aspect of a once great organisation's past.
Sign In to add your comment
|
|
Printable version |
|
Email to a friend |
