AUBURN — Harvest Hill Farm owner Peter Bolduc Jr. has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for more time to file required financial statements in his petition for Chapter 11 protection of his company, Andover Covered Bridge.

The limited liability company had until July 16 to file the statements, which were to include a full accounting of the company’s assets and liabilities, but missed that deadline. It has now asked for a July 27 extension.

If the statements are not filed, the petition will be dismissed.

The company’s debt is estimated between $1 million and $10 million.

Andover Covered Bridge owns the land and buildings on Route 26 that are leased to Bolduc’s farm operation, including the Gauntlet haunted hayride, Farm House Pizza and Pumpkin Land. The bankruptcy petition was an emergency filing on July 3, the same day as the Route 26 property was scheduled for a foreclosure auction.

According to Portland attorney Steven Cope, who filed the bankruptcy petition on behalf of Bolduc’s company, the foreclosure auction had been scheduled to satisfy a mortgage on the property. That mortgage is owned jointly by Jaspan Schlesinger, a law firm in Garden City, N.Y., and E. Layne Moulders Corp., of Amityville, N.Y.

“Each have a half-interest in the property,” Cope said, and when the bankruptcy petition was filed it automatically stopped “any action by any creditor to enforce any claim or lien,” suspending the foreclosure auction by the New York creditors. It will also stop the town of Mechanic Falls from enforcing a scheduled lien on the property for unpaid personal property taxes of nearly $9,200.

Jaspan Schlesinger and E. Layne Moulders are two of 19 creditors named in the bankruptcy petition, which also includes four people who were injured as a result of the haunted hayride accident at the Harvest Hill location in October 2014.

Other creditors include Pumpkin Land, operating under the corporate name October 22; the town of Mechanic Falls, employees of the farm, and operations of the farm itself, including Farm House Pizza.

The Chapter 11 petition allows Bolduc time to restructure his finances and stay in business.

In addition to the foreclosure proceedings initiated by Jaspan Schlesinger and E. Layne Moulders, Bolduc and his wife, Kathie, are facing foreclosure of their family home in Poland. The couple owes nearly $600,000 in principal and nearly $40,000 in interest on two mortgages with Androscoggin Savings Bank.

The Bolducs are also in default of a loan by Tomi Chipman Inc., which sold its Pumpkin Land business to the couple in 2009, according to Androscoggin County Superior Court records. The sale included the business name, signs and equipment. The Chipman company claims the Bolducs and October 22 owe $235,679 on the original $575,000 loan.

The Bolducs have petitioned the court to summarily dismiss both foreclosure actions.

According to court records, the Bolducs assert they owe Tomi Chipman $119,000, not $235,679 as noted in the foreclosure filing. This, according to the records, is based on a conversation Peter Bolduc had with a Chipman company official last fall in which he was told he owed $119,000.

But, according to Chipman’s accountant, the principal amount owed since January 2013 is $189,061, with another $23,185 in interest and $23,433 in late charges, bringing the current debt to $235,679.

The court has denied the Bolducs’ motion contesting the foreclosure proceedings on Pumpkin Land.

The court has not yet ruled on a similar motion contesting the foreclosure on the couple’s home.

Peter Bolduc’s companies that are associated with the Route 26 property — Harvest Hill Farm, October 22 and Andover Covered Bridge — are operating under a warning from the Secretary of State’s Bureau of Corporations and considered “not in good standing” with the state.

On June 6, the registered agent for each of these companies resigned and Bolduc has not yet appointed a clerk, which is required by the Bureau of Corporations. He has until early August to do so or the state will dissolve the businesses.

The first meeting of creditors in the bankruptcy case is scheduled for Aug. 6 in Portland. Creditors not already named on the petition have until Nov. 4 to file a claim with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court against Andover Covered Bridge.

jmeyer@sunjournal.com

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