Five years after they began fighting to keep their home, Beryl and Ray Taylor are about to be evicted from the property they sank their life savings into, instead moving into a donated pop-top caravan.
The couple, aged 71 and 79, are just two of the victims in the Sterling First debacle, a rent-for-life scheme now the subject of legal proceedings after its collapse in 2019.
Beryl and Ray Taylor have a matter of days before they will be evicted.Credit: GoFundMe
The company sold lifetime lease packages to retirees and pensioners and after it went into liquidation, around 120 people, mostly West Australians, have been left homeless and broke.
Beryl and Ray fought their eviction notice in the Supreme Court, but this week were given the devastating news that their Ravenswood home’s lease was never registered in the first place and therefore did not exist.
They have until 2pm on September 29 to leave the premises.
“We’re devastated,” Beryl Taylor said.
The Taylors, parents to four daughters, have lived in Mandurah for 35 years and had paid off their home.
Wanting to downsize, the couple heard about Sterling First in 2016, Taylor now recalling how it seemed too good to be true.
“That first meeting, I went there and I said, ‘what’s the catch?’” she said.
“He said, ‘there is no catch’.
“[Sterling Founder Raymond] Jones told me: ‘You’ll never have a worry in the world.’”
Not convinced, Taylor made calls to Australian Securities and Investments Commission to check out the scheme, as well as Consumer Protection.
“I did my due diligence,” she said.
“I got an email from [Consumer Protection] saying that we were protected by the Residential Tenancies Act, but that wasn’t true.”
The Taylors handed over $160,000 from the sale of their family home, superannuation and a funeral fund.
In May 2019 they heard on TV news reports the company had gone bust.
Their attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful.
The three men behind the scheme, Raymond Jones, his son Ryan Jones and Simon Bell are facing charges of engaging in dishonest conduct in relation to a financial product or service, and will be before Stirling Court Gardens Magistrate Court on October 2.
But in February, 9 News Perth reported the WA Department of Commerce told ASIC of its concerns the lease-for-life was a Ponzi scheme years ago.
Freedom of Information documents revealed that in April 2017 it was mentioned in discussions between the Department of Commerce and ASIC, “this has hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme” but over a month later insufficient evidence was found to refuse Sterling First a licence to operate.
It was given a three-year renewal.
Taylor said she and her husband received a termination notice in the post to vacate the property in 2019 but refused.
Legal proceedings were started against them in the Supreme Court of WA and for over five years they have been on tenterhooks awaiting the outcome.
On Monday they were given the devastating news.
“We’ve been living in absolute fear of this,” she said through tears.
The couple, due to their age, lack of rental history and lack of savings, have struggled to secure a home.
They say they can’t afford $400-$500 rent per week on a pension and that aged care properties were full.
Instead they have been “graciously” offered a pop top caravan to use temporarily – provided they can find somewhere to park it.
Friends and neighbours have launched a GoFundMe page to try to support the couple in the hope they could at least purchase a full-height caravan.
Beryl believes her cancer diagnosis in 2019 was brought on by the stress.
Now she wants to help others going through the same ordeal.
“What I want to get across to people is,” she said, “don’t believe anyone.”