Recovering a deposit

CIV-2025-086-000043

Summary

Richard Lowe, of Karamea, took a deposit of $50,000 off me for a section of land. A contract was signed. It included a right to cancel and if so, I would recieve my deposit back in full. Mr. Lowe kept promissing but failing to refund my deposit.

notice of conference

I do want my money back, and that's why I've taken him to court. A hearing is scheduled for 18th December 2025. I shall be presenting my own case because lawyers advised litigation fees would rapidly transcend the value of my claim.

my statement

Case documents supplied previously, like my statement of claim, explain my position.

Context

I moved to Karamea in 2023. My new place was not only a money pit, but also turned out to be unsuitable for my 3 dogs: The wire fences were insecure with too many distractions that they might bark at. I had bought the place after the vendors gazumped me on the one in a quiet cull-de-sac with corrugated fences, that I had put an offer on, whereas this one was on a busy through road with an array of rough farm batches down one side and a neighbour's sheep wandering in and out of the back garden.

The vendors themselves had two large dogs, but self isolated with Covid the week my pre-purchase inspection was due. The difference in situation was not clear to me, but meanwhile I had run out of time to keep looking. Alas it soon became evident I was going to have to sell up and move again.

A new friend told me he had recently bought a section from Richard Lowe, and said there were several more available. I phoned Richard and he showed me lot 4 that he was prepared to offer me.

sale/purchase agreement

Contract

Richard came round to my home on Saturday 19th October 2024. He presented me with a contract, I paid a 50k deposit there and then by online bank transfer. On 11 Nov 2024 Richard presented his final draft of the contract which we agreed would supersede the earlier one. Either way, the same cancellation clause was in both.

I have confirmed the account owner to which I made my original 50k payment. Contrary to Richard's claim this was not a trust account, neither was his trust mentioned on the contract we signed. My deposit went to his personal account and that is why I am suing him personally for my refund rather than his trust.

Cancellation

Although my motives for buying and later cancelling are a separate issue, in brief, Karamea was turning in to a huge disappointment for me and my dogs. I phoned Richard several times confirming my cancellation. I needed my money back so I could move on. Indeed in the contract it said that would follow within 30 days.

Tama & Māyā

Richard kept assuring me it was all in hand, that my deposit was sitting in "his trust account" and would be returned to me promptly.

The days soon turned into months and now over a year and I'm still waiting stuck here in an untenable situation enduring daily hostilities from people who object to my dogs being allowed off the lead or barking at them when they walk past. Eventually and heart broken I was forced to rehome two of them and I miss them dearly.

Invalid defense

memo

Sunday 7th Dec 2025 I e-mailed my Case management Memorandum to the court registrar, to the defendant, to the law firm registerd as holding the land title as well as one of his witnesses whom he had quoted in his "defense and counterclaim". Note that with the hearing only 3 days off, I have yet seen no sign of a defendants memorandum.

The crux of my memo is that I'm not engaging with his counterclaim. It would be up to him to file a separate case and I will definitely contest that.

This case is about my right to a refund, and how I might extract it from Mr. Lowe.

Defendant's actual defense seems to amount to little more than an allegation that I would have failed to give the required written cancellation prior to the 1st of March deadline. He seems to think I would thereby be "in breach of contract".

written cancellation

Unfortunately I did not initially record all our phone calls, but equally unfortunate for Richard I did find in my e-mail outbox the written notice of cancellation that I had sent to his lawyer on 17 January 2025. It had in fact been his lawyer who advised me to do so when I phoned him. Thus defendant's assertion that I had neglected to provide official written cancellation prior to his deadline is incorrect. Persistantly it has been the defendant who neglected to acknowledge communications, and even his e-mail address (faultylowe@farmside.co.nz), did nothing to persuade me he would be reading any of it.

Issues in communication

hflaw

In the real world there can be no doubt that Richard was fully aware I wanted to cancel my acquisition of his section, but if he weren't then all it would mean is that our contract was still in effect and I would have had every right to "dump my rubbish" (his counter claim exhibit 14) on my prospective site as I "took posession of it" under the "gentleman's agreement" terms of said contract.

It was in fact exactly to bring this to a head why I did that and no other such instances ever took place. You see, talking to him and his lawyers (click link to see their typically inane input) was getting nowhere.

contact details?

Besides his phone number, the only contact details Mr. Lowe gave me had been this hand drawn map of where he would be living at the time. It turned out to be a delapidated rental in town that has since been condemned. You can see the place in the video where I finally go round to talk to him face to face about my missing refund, but I would mostly find nobody there.

Richard has since vacated that house and to serve him with my notice of proceedings I had to track him down. It transpired he was a guest at 107 South Terrace. I was unable to reach our local police officer, but luckily one from Granity was onhand to accompany me and make sure there would be no acrimony.

False counterclaim

Richard's Defense

Richard apparently holds me liable for professional services and other expenses incurred developing his subdivision. He claims that those would have been specifically to satisfy my requirements and believes consequently that I should now pay for them all, despite having cancelled the deal as our contract would allow me to.

The contract does say that the deposit helps him to put in infra structure and carry on developing his work in progress subdivision, but that doesn't negate the cancellation clause. It merely shifts the financial onus for a deposit on to the next potential buyer. I don't think he has tried to find one but said he didn't need my help with that when I offered it.

I myself, had been anticipating to live in my campervan there, with no specific plans or needs, until my ideas of what to build crystalised. I didn't ask Richard to do anything specific, but regardless which ones had already been completed it wouldn't be unreasonable for every buyer to expect the things that were promissed in the contract.

There is a lot more I could say about his counter claim, like his exhibit 13. It is a screen shot of THIS post of mine (here embedded from X where it yet remains). It's about the beligerent hostilities I endured from the cliquey Karamea Kommunity.

My post wasn't aimed at Richard in any way. It just evidences the reason that I was looking for somewhere else to go. I think it's of no relevance to the defendant other than as a rather pathetic attempt to denigrate my character.

Contrary to Richard's claim in paragraph 8 of his "details of the dispute and how he tried to resolve it", I was not banned anywhere. I did voluntarily quit the local Karamea Facebook group due to assiduous and unprovoked abuse and blatant trolling.

For such reasons I deem he should file his "counterclaim" as a separate case.

Other professional services

I have little understanding of what is involved in developing a subdivision because it's never been part of my job. Richard lists AMK Civil and Structural Engineers - Nelson, Access Surveying - Christchurch and others, but has not specified what they provided, how much they each charged, and how it would relate to my supposed needs.

I suspect they are inherent cost of developing a compliant subdivision, or residential section and will have to be done and payed for regardless who ultimately buys it. I see no justification for charging any of it to me now that I have cancelled. It was part of what he was selling and in any case a lot of it seems to have been done before I even got involved.

The red marker in the Google map below indicates the exact coordinates of the building platform that I was standing on when Richard first showed me around and I took some photos (GPS coordinates are in the EXIF data of my photo .jpg files).

google-earth-coordinates

Septic tanks

The sections will all need approved septic effluent disposal. To date there is no actual sign of septic tank installation for the section that I was interested in but Richard claims he hired Waiwhero Sewage Design in Westport.

I gather it was something he was offering with all the sections there. It would be sensible to get the same professional to do them all, because some might even necessitate boundary ajustments to meet effluent disposal regulations.

Associated Earth works for lot 4

The photos below were taken 29 September 2024 when Richard showed me the section that he had decided to offer me. He did not offer me any choice or alternatives althouh he did have others. It predated any agreement and what he mentionsed in the contract are part and parcel of what he is offering regardless who buys it. My photos show that the earth works for a dwelling and shed platform had already taken place, so they can't possibly have been done at my behest.

180° panorama
dwelling site
shed site


Reputation & Defammation

From LINZ and District Council documents (that are publicly available), I learned that the sub division has never been registerd, that Richard has a dire history of insolvency as well as bad credit and that there are others who filed caveats against the land concerned. They may have a problem when it comes to selling, or wish to leave it to their heirs. I doubt a couple of caveats will achieve much.

To go easy on Richard's potential cash flow problems I had offered to accept weekly refund payments spread over a whole year. Richard only ever paid the first one and then defaulted on all the rest. As usual he gave me no advance indication nor explanation of his intentions. All I was getting on the phone was "yes, yes yes" but no action ever followed so I went round to talk to him in person on 12th of April 2025. In brief, there he acknowledges that he owes.

His counter offer of $33,800 was made at much later confrontation. Even then I did not "agressively reject it" like he alleges. All I said at that time was to point out he had my bank details and I asked him: "Where is it then?"

I visit Richard

Lawyers & Conflict of Interest

Community Law

This case is a straight forward contractual refund agreement, so I tried to get some advise from Community Law. They were unable to help due to alleged conflict of interest. I thought they would have various lawyers and find me one that would not be conflicted, but alas they were apparently ALL tainted with conflict so I had to make other arrangements.

Eventually I did get to discuss the situation with two different law firms, both of those are now demanding payment for my initial consultation. Equally they warned me that litigation fees would rapidly outstrip the value of my claim, so I didn't engage either of them. Instead I decided (and informed them) that they can wait for payment just like I have to, until I get my money back.

Despite Richard getting free advice from Community Law, in his exhibit 5 he has the temerity to demand non specific costs for Legal Counsel Westport, and Hamish Fletcher Lawyers - Nelson. It is my considered opinion that his legal experts should advise him to abide by the terms of the contract and give me my money back, or they could have done like mine did and tell him litigation fees will soon mount up to a lot more than simply paying the agreed refund.

Record of Title

Title to the land concerned is in the name of Hamish Quentin Fletcher as Executor. It doesn't say executor of what. Is it a trust? Is it an estate, a limited company or a multi-national corporation even? He happens to be the head honcho of hflaw, (i.e. Richard's lawyers) and this suggests that they are complicit and answerable for any commitments and contracts. I gather that a Ronald Stuart Thomson lodged a caveat on 23rd October 2022 although it isn't listed on the record of title that I obtained.

Ron Thompson

They never did revert to me on what basis Richard has a right to be selling land there, but atleast I know that Ron Thompson was the right person to send my written confirmation of cancellation to and that I didn't type his email address incorrectly. Regardless his current employment status he's still prominent as one of their people on the hflaw website today. Defendant should pay my costs because I was left with no other option due to him hogging all the free advice from Community Law and he evidently has some other disputes going on that are nothing to do with me.

Interest

To date Richard has been sitting on 50k of mine and his refund is overdue by about a year. At point 6 of his background to causes of action he asserts that he never agreed to pay 10% annual interest. Note however the agreement was, that I would get my refund within 30 days of cancelation. I could have been earning interest on a bank deposit, but instead I'm still waiting while getting nothing but grief.

In the agreement Richard himself had no qualms imposing a 20k penalty should I fail to complete the transaction in time and in exhibit 5 he demands $4900 from me against non specific "personal loss" on a $40,000 refund that he coughed up when someone else cancelled their acquisition of lot 20. I wonder why would Kane get his refund when mine was declined?

In his email to Richard, Kane blames his cancellation on "circumstances arising from the unresolved Perduta situation". How exactly did my situation affect him at all? All Richard had to do in the first place was simply to pay my refund as per our "gentleman's agreement" and sell to someone else instead giving me the run around.

Social Media & defammation

I did indeed turn to social media, not so much to vent my frustration as more importantly, to find others who might want to resolve similar shenanigans with him as I had few contacts in the area and at least one of them has now expressed similar dissatisfaction with his arrangement. Personally I doubt a couple of caveats against this trust land are going anywhere.

Contrary to Richard's claims I did not disclose anyone's identities. Those Names are listed on official documents like his exhibit 15. They are available to the general public and I have no duty to conceal or redact them.

Conclusion

I have nothing to show for anything Richard may have been doing up there. It appears to have been essential investments for developing a subdivision that he decided to do unilaterally. From the title deed (which last I checked is for the whole block on which the subdivision resides), it is not even clear what right he has to be selling anything at all there. It is in the name of his lawyer who gave me no cogent reply.

I expressed no requirements yet these things will be needed sooner or later and they are included in the sale. With his gift of the gab, Richard once again seeks to side track us. I don't think he has a leg to stand on but if he really expects damages from me, then he should file his own separte case. In this one I am the plaintiff and I will contest his bogus claim as a defendant.

I consequently request that his counterclaim be expunged from this hearing so that we can focus on whether or not I get my deposit back.