An overseas investor has been fined and ordered to repay the profit from resale, after buying a property in Auckland without permission from the Overseas Investment Office.
In total, Chor Ltd has been ordered to pay $554,914.47, Land Information NZ says.
Approval was needed by the OIO when 64 Derbyshire Lane in Karaka was sold in September 2016.
The property was owned by Bingyan Zhou and Xirong Zhou, shareholders of Chor Ltd, when a purchase agreement was made for Chor Ltd to buy the property for $3.2 million.
It was classified as sensitive land under the Overseas Investment Act, as it's greater than 0.4 hectares and is attached to a reserve as well as the foreshore.
In a statement today, Land Information NZ said consent wasn't sought due to failures by Chor Ltd's legal advisors.
The company admitted breaching the act after an anonymous tip-off was sent to the OIO.
"The High Court decision recognises that, from the time the property was first acquired by Mr and Mrs Zhou in 2013 until it was sold by Chor Ltd to a third party in late 2018, the property had been held for beneficiaries of Chor Trust," OIO group manager Vanessa Horne says.
They've been fined $539,914.47 for the breach, the profit from its resale in 2018 to an unrelated third party, and another $15,000 in costs to the OIO.
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