When Libby Reilly’s nine year relationship with Rewi Gemmell came to an end, it was a complete surprise to be told nearly thirty per cent of their Coromandel home was owned by Rewi’s father. The High Court later ruled Arthur Gemmell’s financial contributions to their home were interest-free loans and could not be construed by Maori custom as giving him ownership rights.
The High Court heard evidence of Arthur Gemmell seeking to be scrupulously fair as between his children, ensuring they shared equally in getting financial support; a practice which undermined later claims he was part-owner of Libby’s and Rewi’s family home.
While working as a builder at Hahei on Coromandel peninsular in 2009, Rewi purchased land funded with a bank mortgage and $80,000 put in by his father, Arthur. A year later, Arthur provided another $20,000 to help fund purchase of a relocatable house shifted to the site, used by Rewi and Libby as their family home.
With their relationship at an end, Rewi claimed his father had a 28 per cent equity interest in the property. This reduced the value of Libby’s relationship property claim over the family home.
Father and son claimed there was an oral ‘ownership agreement’ between them, having Arthur’s cash contributions creating an ownership interest. This flowed from Maori tikanga, they said; Maori custom for some hapu recognises that a father’s financial support for a son to buy property sees the father part-owning that property. For Maori, multi-party ownership is the norm within ancestral landholdings.
In court, the paperwork did not match this supposed family understanding.
The $20,000 payment in 2010 was matched against a bank deposit reference as being a ‘loan…interest free.’ Subsequent $20,000 payments by Arthur to his son, used to help paydown his bank mortgage, were similarly described as loans, with interest payable at 2.5 per cent.
The court was told Rewi did pay interest for a period, then stopped.
There was no documentation for the initial $80,000 advance.
Arthur subsequently signed a new will which stated this $80,000 contribution was an interest free loan to Rewi, and that on Arthur’s death this benefit was to be taken into account when distributing his estate between his two children.
Evidence was given of an excel spreadsheet named ‘house equity.xlsx’ set up by Rewi in 2010 detailing house ownership in proportion to cash put in by Arthur, Rewi and another relative, since repaid. Forensic evidence indicated this spreadsheet was in fact created in 2010.
Justice Anderson ruled Rewi was aware from the outset that the $80,000 contribution from his father was a loan. No trust arrangement existed such that Rewi held part-ownership on behalf of his father.
Tikanga may have influenced how Rewi viewed family interests over the property, Justice Anderson said, but the written evidence was that of a loan by Rewi’s father, with Rewi as the sole owner.
The $100,000 contributed by Arthur as interest-free on-demand loans is now repayable given that Arthur has made demand for payment, she ruled.
This debt arose out of purchase of a family home. It is a relationship debt, repayable before any split of relationship property.
Gemmell v. Gemmell – High Court (31.10.25)
25.229