Author Alan Duff has temporarily fended off bankruptcy with a plan he says could repay his debts of more than $3 million.
Once Were Warriors author Duff, who followed up his successful writing career with an unsuccessful foray into property development, has been given two months to persuade 23 known creditors and any others world Health Organization come to light that he privy pull off a publishing and moving picture deal in Europe and pay them all back fully or substantially inside 18 months.
One of Duff's largest debts is to the TEllis Trust, which lent him $2.4 million to buy and develop property.
Another creditor, FMCustodians, gained judgment totalling $237,000 against Duff and his married woman, Joanna Harper, in the High Court at Napier yesterday, patch Carswell Trust got opinion for just over $100,000 against him in Hastings District Court.
Duff did not come out in royal court, where finance company Mutual Finance asked for him to be declared insolvent over $36,000 Duff owes it.
But his lawyer, Gerald McKay, said Duff still hoped to pay all his outstanding debts and asked Judge Gendall for a two-month suspension while a proposal was put to creditors at a meeting on September 23.
"His assets could generously be described as minimal. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose. His creditors have everything to gain from this proposal," Mr McKay told the court.
Duff is living in a settlement in the Loire Valley of France, in a house owned by a British banker, while he translates some of his books into French and negotiates a film sell for one of them.
There could be substantial money from that work, "enough to pay everybody in full", Mr McKay said.
"His circumstances are unusual in that he has a genuine desire to pay off his list of creditors."
Judge Gendall asked Mr McKay world Health Organization paid Duff's airfare to France, and what he was living on when he had no money in the bank and owned little more than a computer.
Mr McKay said the home Duff was staying in "is in the nature of a retreat", owned by a British banker associated with Random House publishing. Duff was organism paid a small living allowance by his publisher.
Judge Gendall aforesaid Duff's case was strange because despite his high level of debt, he could cause the ability to clear it.
"It is appropriate to have one last chance to conclude matters with his creditors," he aforesaid, adjourning the hearing public treasury October 16.
Outside court, Mutual Finance lawyer John Waymouth described the postponement as a parody and aforementioned Duff should have been bankrupted. "Those creditors ar supporting his lifestyle in France and that's not fair," he said.
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