Wellington car dealer claims lease forged as $127k rent dispute escalates to High Court
Photo / Mark Mitchell
The plaintiffs are brothers Manish and Sailesh Patel, the trustees of the Patel Family Trust.
Their statement of claim says Scott began leasing their site on High St in Lower Hutt in February 2012. That deal was formalised with a deed of lease signed in May that year.
Rent was set at $2833 plus GST per month – just over $3250 including tax – and the agreement included a 10% default interest clause.
According to the trust, Scott's rent payments were 'inconsistent' from the outset – some months were overpaid, others underpaid, and by 2013, Scott was regularly behind.
They claim that by 2024, rent arrears had hit six figures, and in August, Scott was given four months to settle the bill or vacate by Christmas Day.
No payment was made, and they changed the locks on December 16. Their lawyer then demanded $127,000 in unpaid rent and interest from Scott – warning the figure would continue to grow until the property was cleared and returned.
In April this year, the trust filed proceedings in the High Court. The Patels have asked the court to:
Confirm Scott's lease was lawfully cancelled.
Grant them possession of the premises.
Order Scott to pay $127,541.41 in arrears and award default interest at 10% per year.
Grant damages for the lost opportunity to lease the site while Scott's vehicles and equipment remain stored there.
Scott, who has been selling cars for more than 55 years, is fighting back – accusing the Patels of forging multiple lease documents and trying to 'extort' money and property from him under false pretences.
The statement of defence he has filed in court outlines his position.
He says that in 2012 he entered into a lease agreement with Jayanti Patel, the father of Manish and Sailesh.
He presented Jayanti Patel with a 'draft' lease, which he had signed – but it was never formally actioned.
'There was no written lease. The arrangement was an unwritten short-term lease as is defined in sections 208, 209 and 210 of the Property Law Act 2007,' his statement said.
'There was no provision in the agreement for payment of interest … The document referred to [in the statement of claim] was not signed by any of the parties named [the brothers or Scott] ... Accordingly, [Scott] is not liable to the plaintiffs.'
Scott alleges the lease documents being relied on in court by the Patel brothers are a manipulated version of the draft agreement he presented to the original trustees in 2012.
In his court statement, he alleges his signature was 'electronically replicated' on to the document using cut-and-paste techniques, and says expert evidence filed alongside his application supports that.
That evidence includes a handwriting analysis and forensic document examination.
The handwriting expert believed the lease contains 'substantial and significant inconsistencies' and 'non-genuine' signatures across different versions. It concluded there was a 'strong probability' the documents had been deliberately altered or fabricated.
Scott also alleges that since being locked out in December, he has been unable to retrieve business equipment and dozens of vehicles left on site – and that several of them have been damaged or stolen.
He alleges unknown offenders have repeatedly entered the property, smashed windows, slashed paintwork, stolen wheels, and stripped valuable items from both vehicles and the on-site office.
On one occasion, four left-hand-drive vehicles were damaged, and a fifth had a window smashed. On another, two cars were stripped of their wheels, rendering them immovable.
David Scott says vehicles have been vandalised at his Park Lane premises on High St, Lower Hutt. Photo / Mark Mitchell
He claims the trust failed to protect the vehicles while they controlled the site.
Scott also says the trust's actions in blocking his access to the property breach the Property Law Act and have caused significant business losses.
He is seeking to have the entire claim thrown out, declaring the lease invalid, and may pursue his own legal action for damage to his property.
Stolen and damaged items, he claims, include five vehicle windows valued at $18,000, a mechanic's industrial toolbox worth $50,000, an air compressor, a floor jack, ladders, various power tools, batteries, and security cameras.
Scott is also seeking $27,500 for panel and paint repairs to damaged vehicles and $9500 for replacement wheels and mags. Additional costs include battery chargers, car opening kits, and other workshop equipment.
Beyond the material losses, the first defendant is also seeking $1.85 million in damages for emotional harm and stress.
David Scott claims valuable items have been stripped from the office at his dealership. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Scott told the Herald that the ongoing saga had deeply affected his health.
'I just want to sell cars … I like to help people."
The Herald reached out to the Patel brothers through their lawyer, Matt Anderson.
Anderson said the men would deny all 'baseless' allegations made by Scott.
'This is a simple rent recovery exercise on behalf of our clients,' he said.
'The tenant was significantly behind on rent for many years … Our clients had hoped that the tenant would vacate the property so they could relet the premises. Court proceedings were filed as the tenant refuses to vacate the premises, despite repeated requests, and our clients are left with a premises they cannot use and a tenant who was significantly in arrears and now will not give up the premises.
'Our clients deny all allegations of inappropriate behaviour referred to by the tenant in their counter-claim.
'Our clients are frustrated that the tenant is making baseless claims and using the court process as a means to delay leaving the premises.'
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 19 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NZ Herald
22 minutes ago
- NZ Herald
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown urges Government to reconsider bed night levy to reboot city's struggling economy
Bridges urged the National Party-led Government to consider serious policy or fiscal stimulus across New Zealand, especially in major cities, to help 'get things going'. The bleak state of Auckland's economy was underscored by a Herald story this month showing a 6.6% drop in card spending in the central city between April and May 2024 and the same period in 2025. The picture was even starker on Karangahape Rd, where spending plunged by 22.5%. It had been the worst winter ever, said Helen McIntryre, who has owned a gift and furniture shop on K Rd for 34 years. Brown backed Bridges' call for the Government to take stronger action to support the economy during these challenging times, noting Auckland's 6.1% unemployment rate had implications for the rest of the country. He said introducing a bed night levy would deliver immediate stimulus by boosting tourism and attracting major events to Auckland. 'There's no reason the Government couldn't make a bed night levy an urgent priority and have it in place by next year,' Brown said. 'The sector supports it and so do most Aucklanders.' Brown has been calling on the Government to approve a bed night levy for some time, but Tourism Minister Louise Upston has ruled it out, saying there would be no new taxes. Today, Upston acknowledged Bridges' comments and noted the ongoing interest in a bed tax. However, she reiterated that 'a tax is not something I'm pursuing this term'. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Tourism Minister Louise Upston are not keen on a bed night levy at this stage. Photo / Dean Purcell 'The most pressing challenge for New Zealand tourism is that we simply don't have enough visitors, and I'm focused on growing those numbers. 'This Government is firmly committed to growing the economy, including Auckland's, and tourism remains a key part of that strategy,' the minister said. So far this term, the Government has hiked the international tourism levy for visitors to New Zealand by nearly 200% from $35 to $100, and announced international tourists would be charged $20 to $40 at four popular destinations – the Tongariro Crossing, Cathedral Cove, Milford Sound and Aoraki Mt Cook. Asked about Bridges' call for a stimulus package on RNZ on Monday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said progress would 'come through to the big cities eventually'. 'I know it's difficult – particularly in our big cities... we've got to keep doing everything we can, but open to more things and discussing more things, but I think at this stage it's keep doing what we are doing,' he said. Herald business editor-at-large Liam Dann backed Bridges' call for a stimulus package in a weekend column, arguing that Auckland's economy is 'broken' and urgently needed Government attention. Karangahape Rd shop owner Helen McIntyre says this winter has been the worst in 32 years. Photo / Jason Dorday Dann suggested the Government could allocate funding to revive three 'dead' buildings in the midtown area – St James Theatre, the vacant Smith & Caughey's building, and the Sky World indoor entertainment complex. He argued restoring these sites would breathe life back into the city and keep skilled workers employed while the broader economy recovers. Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Steve Armitage said Auckland had faced significant challenges in recent years, particularly across the hospitality, accommodation, tourism and events sectors. He supported the introduction of sustainable funding through a levy as soon as possible to create a dedicated and reliable revenue stream to promote tourism, attract major events and conferences, and stimulate spending across hotels, restaurants, retail and entertainment venues. However, rather than adopting an Auckland-only approach, Armitage said Hospitality NZ favoured a nationwide system applied fairly and consistently. A national framework would better support tourism-related activity, including the attraction and delivery of major and business events. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown and Hospitality NZ want a bed night levy to attract more events, such as Kinky Boots at the Civic Theatre. Photo / Jason Oxenham Localised models risk creating unnecessary complexity and inconsistency, Armitage said. The mayor said that when Auckland did well, the country did well, saying NZ's underlying problem was a low-productivity economy that wasn't exporting enough to the world. His goal was for Auckland to lead the country on a path to prosperity, saying his 2025 manifesto identified key opportunities for growth in technology, housing and tourism. Recently, Brown launched the Auckland Innovation & Technology Alliance to attract investment and strengthen the city's position as a competitive hub for tech and innovation. He's also working with Housing Minister Chris Bishop to make use of land for faster and smarter growth. Employers and Manufacturers Association head of advocacy Alan McDonald told RNZ there were some signs of recovery led by the primary sector and in the regions, but in Auckland, which was more about manufacturing and services, hospitality, tourism and education were all down. Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Otago Daily Times
11 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Howard Temple resigns as Gloriavale leader
Gloriavale leader Howard Temple has resigned as Overseeing Shepherd after being convicted of sexual offending against girls and women at the West Coast Christian community. Temple, 85, has been replaced by Shepherd Stephen Standfast. Temple pleaded guilty to five charges of indecent assault, five of doing an indecent act and two of common assault just days into a judge-alone trial in Greymouth last month. He was on bail awaiting sentencing. Formerly known as Howard Smitherman, Temple is a former US Navy engineer who became Overseeing Shepherd in 2018 after the death of the community's founder Hopeful Christian. The community confirmed Temple's resignation in a statement released on Tuesday. "The Overseeing Shepherd of the Gloriavale Christian Community, Howard Temple, 85, has resigned," the statement said. "His position has been taken by Stephen Standfast, who has been designated to replace Mr Temple for several years. Mr Temple succeeded the community's founder, Hopeful Christian, upon his death in 2018. In the years since then, he has led a campaign to establish policies around child safety and well-being, as well as workplace health and safety. "Mr Standfast, 48, has spent several years now working with outside agencies to support on-going changes for safety and well-being." Following Temple's conviction, Gloriavale leaver Virginia Courage said he was generally well-liked but had different personas. "Howard is viewed as a very nice, gentle person - very respectful to women, very well mannered. The truth is, he actually is, when he's Howard-the-person, but when he steps into his cult persona as the Overseeing Shepherd of Gloriavale, the person who's keeping the rules and the person who's making sure everyone's on the straight and narrow, he's the cult-Howard," she said. Barrister Brian Henry said Gloriavale's leaders would present the charges against Temple as "lies of the system" working against the community, but his admission of guilt differed to the conviction of Christian, who was jailed on indecent assault charges that he denied. "This time he [Temple] has admitted it, he's pleaded guilty to charges which expressly state he had intent to sexually abuse these girls," he said. "Howard Temple is in a different situation to the others who have been prosecuted in the last couple of years. He is someone who created the environment they're in. He is one of the original establishers of Gloriavale. He's been in the top job since the 1990s. He's a ringleader, he's actually one of the king sex offender crims in my book." In January, Temple delivered a public apology on behalf of the church for abuse at the community between 1950 and 1999, following a Royal Commission of Inquiry recommendation last July. The commission had urged the government to do everything it could to ensure the safety of Gloriavale members and their children as a result of findings that leaders allowed physical and sexual abuse at the community. A multimillion-dollar class action lawsuit was filed against Gloriavale and five government agencies last year by former members who claim they were held as slaves from birth by the leaders. It followed separate High Court action alleging five government agencies knowingly allowed abuse to happen at the community. In two landmark Employment Court cases in 2022 and 2023, chief judge Christina Inglis ruled nine former members were community employees, rather than volunteers. Police have also been investigating allegations of forced labour, slavery and servitude at Gloriavale.
NZ Herald
19 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Jordan Keil inquest: Mum on finding son dead at Middlemore Hospital's mental health unit
'I felt that he was cold and lifeless,' she said, describing calling for help. 'I was crying and screaming out to the security guard. I told him to go and get help.' Thorpe, from Auckland's Pakuranga, said earlier in her search the security guard on duty told her he had no idea the young man for whom she was searching was missing. She said the security guard on duty the previous night - when her son had first gone missing - was also unaware there was a patient on the loose. 'How was it security had not been notified?' Jordan Keil, 25, who died in February 2022. Likewise, she told the Auckland District Court, police were also not alerted by the mental health unit her high-risk, suicidal son had gone absent without leave. The testimony followed a gathering of about 50 of Jordan's whanau and friends in support of parents Mike Keil and Thorpe. Bearing a sign saying, 'Justice for Jordan', the group waited on a kairanga from the courthouse before stepping forward to meet the call. The haka, Tika Tonu It was then the men stepped forward to deliver the haka, Tika Tonu. Jordan's brother, William, told the Herald it was chosen to convey 'what is always right is right' - the setting straight of what had gone wrong. Literally 'ground shaking', Tika Tonu was delivered with such ferocity and passion it drowned out the sound of concrete being drilled at the construction site across the road. The hearing packed out the courtroom and heard Thorpe allege a string of failures by health workers in the eight days leading up to Jordan's death on February 7, 2022. Coroner Rachael Schmidt-McCleave has said those claims - and other aspects of Jordan's death - would be studied during the course of the inquest in a bid to find if there were changes to prevent such a tragedy happening again. Jordan Keil (Waikato-Tainui, Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahunganga and Ngāti Pūkeko and Ngāti Koroki) was a former St Peter's College 1st XV and water polo player who had trained as an electrician, travelled the world and returned to New Zealand before Covid-19 arrived to set up his own business. In January 2021, he was in a settled relationship and had enjoyed a family Christmas and summer holiday diving and fishing before returning to work. The coroner's inquest for Jordan Keil begins in the Auckland District Court. Photo / Michael Craig But he was showing signs of severe distress, his mother told the inquest, with delusions and paranoia that pushed her to take him to Auckland Hospital's emergency department. That visit on January 31 was the beginning of a nightmare that would end with his death in care. 'Assumptions' challenged Thorpe's criticisms included what she called 'assumptions' and 'inaccuracies' that she said wrongly built a prejudicial picture of her son. One example was hospital notes that claimed Jordan wanted to kill his mother when the 111 recording actually said he had concerns 'someone' was going to kill his mother - that he feared for her rather than was a threat to her. Thorpe said other errors included notes describing Jordan as taking MDMA - an illegal empathogen - daily for weeks and binge drinking. She said his admission of occasional use had been extrapolated and cut-and-pasted across hospital notes, skewing the way he was treated. She said in the wake of his death she had quizzed her son's friends and found he had last used the club drug a week before his hospital admission and only three times in total. That early attempt to seek help led to questions over why she had gone to Auckland Hospital which wouldn't be funded for Jordan's treatment while it would be at Middlemore Hospital, which was closer to where they lived, Thorpe said. Many hours later, a doctor told Thorpe there were no available mental health beds for her son and a prescription was given along with instructions on how to care for him at home. Family members attend Jordan Keil's inquest in the Auckland District Court. Photo / Michael Craig Thorpe testified about how they never got home with Jordan's distress spiking on leaving the hospital. He began speaking of a bomb under his mother's car and a gang plot to kill her. He grabbed the keys from his mother and ran away with police later finding him on a bridge, saying he was going to jump. Once he was returned to hospital, medical staff organised for him to be committed for treatment on the basis of substance abuse under the Mental Health Act, with his drug use strongly challenged by family and friends. Thorpe said two slightly built female nurses then turned up in a sedan to drive him to Tiaho Mai, leading to her voicing concerns over what she considered an inadequate escort for her athletic and distressed son. Thorpe and her son's father, Mike Keil, who had come to help search for their son, set out to follow their son to Middlemore Hospital. Jordan Keil's second escape She alleged the car sped away and that her fears were realised when they came across the nurses' sedan stopped on the motorway near Sylvia Park. They discovered Jordan had climbed out of the moving car and had again gone on the run. What followed was eight hours of horror with Jordan atop the Sylvia Park car park building, saying he would jump. Mike Keil and Thorpe stayed and waited, and she told the court how grateful she and her former partner were for police efforts in convincing their son to come down. 'It was like a horrifying movie unfolding,' said Thorpe. 'I felt like I was going to throw up. My chest was pounding. I thought I was going to die due to the stress I was experiencing.' Afterwards, Jordan, with injuries sustained bailing out of the car, was taken with a police escort to the secure mental health unit. Jordan Keil, 25, who died in February 2022. Once there, her concerns only increased, she said. There was no expression of tikanga Māori and no accommodation for whanau to stay even though Covid-19 restrictions at the nearby Middlemore Hospital were more permissive, she said. The assumption of drug abuse was later revealed with notes suggesting mental health staff considered she might have smuggled 'concealed substances' to her son. It was 'insulting', she said: 'I am a loving mother, a school teacher and a law-abiding citizen.' 'Most devastating thing' The poor treatment, she said, extended to after Jordan's death when the hospital did not make contact until the family had a lawyer to send a letter. That led to a meeting at which, she said, the hospital kaumatua 'kept dozing off'. She claimed at one stage, he said: 'I don't know what I'm doing here. It has happened before and will happen again.' She said her 'heart breaks' to think of Jordan's eight days at Tiaho Mai. She alleged issues with the medical notes, the diagnosis and even confusion over which room her son had been kept in. The inquest also heard that Jordan escaped from the secure unit that night using a spoon to open a broken window. 'Jordan's death has had a catastrophic impact on all our lives. Losing a child must be the most devastating thing that can happen to a parent.' David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004. Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
