The Auckland Cleaning Deal That Went Rotten: Missing Work, Side Hustles and Franchisees Left Carrying the Damage

An Auckland franchise dispute has become much more than a fight over unpaid invoices. Candoo says Shan Fernando and Jay Mohottige were brought into the Auckland region to feed work into the franchise network. Instead, the work never arrived, franchisees were left short, and the people meant to support them allegedly helped turn those franchisees against the company.

The documents tell a sharper story than an ordinary commercial breakup.

On 8 June 2025, Candoo sent a Regional Master Franchise proposal to Jay and Shan through their business, Luxe Sparkle. The deal was built around a value exchange: Luxe Sparkle would transition into Candoo Cleaning Auckland, its existing client work — around $250,000 in annual revenue — would flow to Candoo franchisees, and Jay and Shan would step out of day-to-day cleaning and into regional leadership. In recognition of that goodwill, Candoo waived the standard $50,000 RMF licence fee.

Candoo says that bargain was not honoured.

The work never came across. Franchisees were left asking where the jobs were. Meanwhile, Shan and Jay had full access to Candoo's systems, support infrastructure, sales pipeline, customer data, and brand platform. Candoo paid Luxeora Eleven Limited $19,778.52 on 17 August 2025 — in good faith, while still waiting for the transition to materialise. It says it never did.

The dispute is now before the Disputes Tribunal. Luxeora claims Candoo owes further income warranty payments. Candoo denies it, and says the $50,000 establishment fee remained payable because the value exchange it was waived against was never delivered.

When asked for comment, Candoo did not hold back. "It is appalling that not only did they not bring the work into the business for their franchisees, but they then ran another cleaning business in competition to their own franchisees. And the audacity to then claim an income warranty whilst they owed the company $50,000 after running an independent cleaning business in direct competition to the very franchisees they were meant to be helping… which is such a clear breach of not only their agreement but also of the trust of the franchisees… is disgusting."

Candoo's Tribunal submission is equally direct: Luxeora neither paid the fee nor handed over any work. It got the upside. Franchisees wore the downside.

We contacted four affected franchisees. Auckland franchisee Jaimin Patel put it plainly: "Candoo has received a bad rap in the media because of people like Shan and Jay, however they have done nothing but good things for us. After Shan and Jay did not provide any work, Candoo put a new RMF and business developer in place who quickly secured us the work for our income guarantee. We are happy now and our income is well above what we expected."

When a franchisee sits without work, they see the brand. They see Candoo. What they may not see is the regional layer that was supposed to supply the jobs.

That is what makes the WhatsApp group chat so significant. Screenshots reviewed as part of this report show that after leaving the business, Shan and Jay created a group chat and began adding Candoo franchisees to it — using it to talk negatively about the company. The allegation is not merely that they failed to perform. It is that having left without delivering the work they promised, they then allegedly set about shaping the narrative with the very franchisees who had been left short. Those franchisees may have been encouraged to direct their anger at Candoo while being kept away from the uncomfortable question of who was meant to bring the work into Auckland in the first place.

We heard audio recordings from Nalaka Anuranga, a Candoo franchisee caught up in the dispute. "Shan just added me to a group chat without asking me. I didn't participate. They were discussing ways to hurt Candoo."

It is not an isolated pattern. Enliko Faamasinoga, another former Candoo RMF who operated under the name "Lex South" across the Christchurch territory, is the subject of a separate Disputes Tribunal matter. Faamasinoga proposed a settlement involving a $30,000 payment schedule, removal of a published article, withdrawal of the Tribunal claim, and mutual non-disparagement. Candoo franchisees in Christchurch allege a similar dynamic played out in their region. Candoo treats both matters as part of the same pattern: former regional operators leaving damage behind, then using reputation pressure as leverage.

Meeting notes from September 2025 add important context. By that point, Shan and Jay were still attending Auckland meetings — discussing site allocation, franchisee guarantees, and new job leads through contacts at Service King and Barfoot and Thompson. They were also asking about their exit plan. The region still needed work. The commercial promise of the RMF deal had not been delivered. The exit conversation had already begun.

By November the relationship had deteriorated. Candoo's correspondence was direct: the original understanding was that Jay and Shan would bring customers to Candoo so franchisees could work. That had not happened, and Candoo had been left "paying out franchisees for expected work that never came through."

On 23 December 2025, Candoo issued a cease and desist notice alleging breach of non-compete and restraint obligations. The following day, it issued a letter of demand for the $50,000 fee.

Shan and Jay dispute Candoo's position. They say the fee was clearly waived in the June proposal, that Candoo made only one payment, and that Candoo owes $40,221.48 in outstanding warranty payments.

Candoo's answer is simple: the waiver was tied to a value exchange. The work was meant to come across. It did not.

This story is not just about a contract. Candoo franchisees buy into a brand because they believe the system will work — that the people above them will bring work, allocate jobs fairly, and tell the truth when things go wrong. Candoo's case is that in Auckland, the opposite happened.

The most damaging allegation is the simplest. Shan and Jay were not outsiders criticising the company after a failed deal. They were insiders — with the systems, the customer relationships, the franchisee contacts, and the regional obligation to deliver. According to Candoo, they used all of that access without delivering what it was given for, and then allegedly turned it against the company when they left.

The Tribunal will decide the legal claims. But the commercial picture is already in the documents: a $50,000 fee waived for a quarter-million dollars of work that allegedly never arrived, a near-$20,000 payment made in good faith, franchisees left waiting, and a WhatsApp group that Candoo says helped redirect their anger away from the people responsible.

That is why Candoo is not treating this as an accounting dispute. It is treating it as a betrayal of the franchisees Shan and Jay were supposed to support.