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Blue Chip company sign - Source: ONE News
A Northland couple have lost their claim that GE Money (GE Custodians) breached its duty of care by lending them around NZ$640,000, which was used to buy a Blue Chip apartment.
The High Court in Auckland has dismissed a claim by pensioners Judy and Bruce Bartle meaning that GE Money will now be able to enforce its mortgages over the couple's Whangarei house and Symonds Street, Auckland, apartment.
The Bartles sought to have mortgages worth $263,000 over their Whangarei home and $366,000 owed on the apartment discharged plus damages.
Despite the ruling, the judgment does leave open the option for Blue Chip investors to sue the legal advisers who helped them invest in apartments via Blue Chip. In his judgment Justice Tony Randerson found that GE did not owe to the Bartles a duty of care of the kind pleaded.
"In order to protect its own interests, a lender will usually make inquiries to ascertain that it is commercially sensible to make the loan, he said.
"But it was not bound to do so and the nature and extent of any such inquiries is entirely a matter for the lender's own judgment."
Justice Randerson ruled in favour of the Bartles' claim against their lawyer Jonathan Mathias saying that Mathias conveyed "a very misleading impression of the Blue Chip investment", according to The New Zealand Herald.
Randerson reserved his judgment over damages.
