Owners in Lake Hayes’ 42-lot Bendemeer also own a one-42nd share in 46.66ha of common amenity, including estate roads, ponds and a tennis court.
Oliver Road owner Cam Winter says homes that’d otherwise be treated as residential property are pushed into the ‘otherwise sensitive’ land category.
That means foreign Active Investor Plus visa-holders who might want to buy a typically $5 million-plus Bendemeer property also need Overseas Investment Office consent that could take 65 to 100 working days, let alone fees that can reach $139,000.
In so doing, Winter’s agency claims up to a fifth of Queenstown’s top-end homes may be excluded from the new investor-visa $5m-plus residential pathway.
Oliver Road has written to Deputy Prime Minister and Associate Finance Minister David Seymour asking for an urgent administrative fix.
‘‘This is not an argument about opening productive farms to overseas buyers. It is about an inherently protected, shared amenity area on a residential estate being treated as if every homeowner has bought a farm.
‘‘The buyer gets 1/42 of the benefit and 42/42 of the burden.
‘‘That is not good law, good policy or good administration.’’
He notes the issue’s already a common frustration among Australian and Singaporean buyers, but now also for the new overseas cohort the government’s reforms are designed to attract.
‘‘Queenstown should be one of the strongest proof points for the government’s investor-visa reforms.
‘‘Instead, an avoidable interpretation is locking some of the most relevant homes out of the pathway.’’ — Philip Chandler
