The Crafar family's last minute attempt to block the sale of their 16 central North Island farms has failed.

Shortly before the tender deadline on the properties closed on Wednesday, he filed an injunction at the High Court in Auckland to stop their sale.

The injunction sought to prevent receivers KordaMentha and creditors Westpac, Rabobank and PGG Wrightson from selling the properties.

Allan Crafar wasn’t in court for the injunction hearing, but says he’s sad proceedings came to this.

I’d rather we didn’t need to do anything in court, I’d rather the receiver just let me redeem my debt." 

Mr Crafar has previously been reluctant to speak about the details of the injunction, or even its existence.

Natural Dairy NZ, the frontrunner to win the tender if its bid is approved by the Overseas Investment Office, moved quickly to distance itself from the injunction and says it will continue with its bid and buy the farms if it is allowed.

State-owned farming company Landcorp is the other main contender for the farms.

Chief executive Chris Kelly says he can empathise with Mr Crafar.

"He’s pretty aggrieved and he’s using every attempt he can to hang onto his farms, I can understand that.

"In saying that, however, Michael Stiassny is a very experienced receiver, he’s done a lot of receiverships, and I suspect he will have all his bases covered.”