Gregg, I think that its a fairly straightforward thing to establish if there is a mortgage over a property here in Oz. But it might be more difficult to track past transactions, particularly if & when a previous mortgage had been paid out.
I am sure that Elizabeth will have already done the basic searches by now & sussed out purchase/transfer dates, mortgage situation, etc, so I might beg off that one & avoid muddying the waters with multiple lines of enquiry on the same subject.
Ben, you are right about the misleading reports of car status, & the fact that mismanagement is no excuse, regardless of the underlying causes.
If RL was feeding seed money to SA (as would appear to be the case), you would think that someone over there had the authority to spend it (presumably on materials, tools, wages, etc). You would also think that RL &/or his staff (who made many trips to SA) would have been checking on this directly, and by way of expenditure reporting back to Oz. BUT, if someone in SA really wanted to get into fraud, how hard would it be to fake up a bunch of invoices that looked legit ?
I can understand things going pear-shaped through fraud in SA, but it is also a worry when we seem to have 26 cars ordered & only a contract in place with Camco for 8 cars !
Denise, very well said. A team like you & Ben is a rare and beautiful thing, and I am sure that you will realise your dream - you have a lot of friends here on the Forum !
Kind Regards,
Peter D.