An Auckland woman struggling to keep an apartment she bought from her mum but can no longer afford, has taken down a Givealittle page aimed at raising money to save her property.
Bridie Campbell says she used the money she inherited after her father died of cancer to pay a 10 percent deposit on a $636,000 Sugartree apartment.
Campbell bought the apartment off the plans but now can't afford to come up with the further 10 percent needed to have a 20 percent deposit and secure the property, she told Newstalk ZB.
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Campbell said she bought the apartment on the advice of her mum, but says she was never told how hard it would be for her to borrow the outstanding amount from banks.
On her Givealittle page yesterday, Campbell said that if she failed to raise the $60,000 she needed all the money raised would go to cancer charities.
Today, Campbell updated the page to have no mention of saving her apartment, instead stating all that proceeds would go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand.
Campbell told the NZ Herald she closed the page because "the public is starting to view the situation as a scam".
Yesterday she said she had put the apartment up for sale while she continued to look for money.
"I'm also looking for any sort of personal loan and basically any investors that can lend me the rest of the deposit with interest."
To save the apartment, she said she needed another $60,000, in order to have the necessary 20 percent deposit. If she could get that amount, she said she was confident she could get a loan on the outstanding amount.
Martin Dunn, who employed Campbell's mother Priscila Sarreal at City Sales, said it was an "awful situation" for Campbell, but she was a "very difficult client".
'We've been trying to move heaven and earth to get Bridie out of this," he told Newstalk ZB.
He said it wasn't possible for Campbell to simply recoup her $60,000 and get out of the deal and that her best option was to on-sell the apartment for what she paid for it. According to Dunn, Campbell was determined to do that only if she could earn a "big profit on it", something he said was not possible.
Newshub.
