Judge discharges order against Mike Pero

Mike Pero has scored a small victory in his long-running legal battle against the current owners of the mortgage advisory firm that bears his name.

Thursday, August 23rd 2018, 6:00AM

by Miriam Bell

The latest instalment of court proceedings in Mike Pero Mortgages Ltd (MPM) vs Mike Pero and Mike Pero Real Estate hit the Auckland High Court last week.

Justice Alisa Duffy presided over two days of debate over whether or not a hearing scheduled for early September should be adjourned.

As part of that hearing, Pero’s lawyers requested that a 2017 charging order, which directed that Pero pay a debt of $2.5 million to Mike Pero Real Estate (MPRE), be discharged.

This was because Pero repaid the total sum owed in June. He expected that a discharging of the order would follow.

However, MPM would not agree to the discharge of the order and so Pero applied to the court to have the order discharged.

In court, MPM’s lawyers staunchly opposed the discharge of the charging order because of alleged behaviour on the part of Pero, which MPM has now filed separate legal proceedings over.

This week Justice Duffy released her judgment on this particular matter.

She says that MPM’s complaints are no more than unproven allegations and judgment is yet to be given on them.

When it came to the matter of the charging order, payment of the judgment sum extinguished liability for those complaints.

Justice Duffy says that while MPM may view the conduct underlying those complaints as ongoing, this is something that is presently unproven.

“And insofar as the plaintiff has fresh complaints to bring against the first and second defendants, once again such complaints are unproven.

“Until the allegations are successfully proved and a sealed judgment to that effect is issued, such allegations cannot support a charging order being granted without leave of the Court.”

That means there is no basis for MPM to keep the 2017 charging order alive and MPM’s refusal to agree to its discharge is without foundation, she says.

“Indeed, for the reasons already given, such refusal is unreasonable, oppressive and an abuse of this Court’s process.”

Justice Duffy says that MPM is in no position to bargain about the discharge of the charging order and now that MPRE has been repaid in full there is no basis for the charging order to remain in force.

“Accordingly, I am satisfied there is no proper basis for the opposition to the application to discharge the charging order. It follows that this order is discharged.”

To date, Justice Duffy has not released a decision on whether the proceedings currently set down for September will be adjourned or not.

Mike Pero v Mike Pero companies – the battle continues

Tags: financial advisers Mike Pero mortgages