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When Curtis Hogan* was about nine, he was called to the front of his classroom at St Patrick’s primary school, Ballarat.

Brother Ryan, a member of the Christian Brothers Catholic order, told him to sit on his lap, court documents allege.

The brother was breathing heavily.

“You are my favourite boy,” he allegedly told Hogan.

Hogan alleges Brother Ryan abused him while he sat on his lap.

He was abused by two other Christian Brothers at the same school, according to allegations in court documents.

Hogan has waited 60 years for justice.

The civil trial against the Christian Brothers and a Catholic bishop was due to begin in three weeks in the Victorian supreme court.

Instead, his lawyers at Ken Cush and Associates say the trial will likely be abandoned. It is one of 10 trials against Christian Brothers that had been set to take place this month. Another 18 were slated for August.

The Christian Brothers – an order with one of the most shocking clergy abuse records of any arm of the Catholic church – on Thursday obtained a moratorium on all claims against it, halting them in its tracks.

The moratorium was granted because the Christian Brothers says it is about to run out of money. The order instead wants to set up a scheme that will sell off about 36 properties for $216m and use the funds to partially meet estimated liabilities of about $774m from current and future abuse claims.

Survivors and their lawyers say they were shocked by the sudden nature of the Christian Brothers court bid last week.

“The ambush from the Christian Brothers, who have been preparing this application for months but served firms with documents at 4:30pm for a hearing commencing at 10:00am the next day, has had no regard whatsoever to the impact on individual cases across Australia and in particular those with hearings across July 2026,” Sangeeta Sharmin, Ken Cush and Associates principal solicitor, told the Guardian.

“We remind the Christian Brothers of their pastoral responsibilities towards victim survivors, especially if they will be maintaining denials of any kind in these proceedings and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on defending a claim yet suggesting pending insolvency.”

The Christian Brothers’ proposed scheme is still being considered by a range of creditors, including survivors, who will have final say on whether it goes ahead.

Many have expressed alarm at the way the Christian Brothers have moved assets to another arm of the church, Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA), in the past decade.

On Thursday, lawyers for the federal government voiced their own concerns in court about the potentially “disturbing” asset transfers.

EREA was created in 2007 and is named after the Christian Brothers’ founder. It operates former Christian Brothers schools, but maintains it is wholly independent from the Christian Brothers.

Property records obtained by the Guardian show vast holdings of property had moved from the Christian Brothers to EREA, including multimillion-dollar homes in Sydney, for amounts of $1. The Australian Financial Review first reported that EREA had received transferred land worth $891m that could now be worth $2bn.

Court documents show that the Christian Brothers estimates the property transfers were worth about $540m.

“The province has not identified any records that would support EREA’s reported figure of $891m,” the religious order said in court documents.

This includes $95m of college land in Queensland, $85m in New South Wales and the ACT, $134m in Victoria and $227m in Western Australia and South Australia, according to court documents.

The documents also reveal the Christian Brothers had settled 21 claims for which it was yet to make payment prior to the moratorium. Those claims are worth $11.4m.

EREA says the properties will not be sold off to help the Christian Brothers, though they are firmly in the sights of lawyers representing survivors. “Our clients are rightly asking the question: if the Christian Brothers claim they cannot pay, why aren’t the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia held responsible?” Jodie Harris, partner at Arnold, Thomas & Becker, said.

“Today, EREA owns and operates the very schools where so many children were abused. They command an annual income of more than a billion dollars and have had hundreds of millions of dollars in property effectively gifted to them.

“How is it fair or right that they cannot help pay for the damage caused by the Christian Brothers?”

The Christian Brothers says it is not attempting to stop survivors from suing EREA or scrutinising the property transfers through the scheme it has proposed.

The Christian Brothers wrote to EREA on Wednesday to ask it whether it considers “itself to be a proper defendant to any claims”.

“We reiterate again that neither the moratorium … nor the proposed creditors scheme of arrangement, are intended to in any way act as an impediment to claimants wanting to bring actions against EREA,” a spokesperson said outside court.

The spokesperson said they have sought “financial assistance from EREA and other Catholic institutions to continue to respond to those who have been harmed”.

“The Trustees of the Christian Brothers have, and continue, to express their enduring regret and sorrow at the harm caused as a result of the abuse committed by members of our congregation,” the spokesperson said.

“We acknowledge the decision to publicly announce the difficult financial position of the Province’s entities, our decision to seek a scheme of arrangement and also a moratorium on civil proceedings, may have been unexpected, however it was important that all eligible creditors were made aware of the financial position.”

In a statement, an EREA spokesperson said the property sales were part of a slow, ongoing process to transition schools to EREA that had been delayed due to the complex nature of the land transfers.

The process has prompted scrutiny by the federal government. Tanya Plibersek, the minister for social services, expressed serious concern about the approach of the Christian Brothers in parliament on Thursday.

“Growing up, I was taught that there was one church and one god, not multiple corporate entities that transfer assets for purposes that are yet to be made clear,” she said. “The feeling that no one may be held to account for this abuse – that is perhaps even worse than the financial impacts … The idea that no one will be held to account for child sexual abuse, when it is identifiable where it happened and who was responsible, I think is devastating for victims and survivors.”

The moratorium granted to the Christian Brothers in the New South Wales supreme court on Thursday will give time for survivors to consider the property selloff scheme.

It will return to court in August. Should survivors and other creditors not agree to the scheme, the Christian Brothers have warned they will go into liquidation. That would leave even less funds available for creditors.

Slater and Gordon Lawyers abuse lawyer Ciara White said survivors were faced with an agonising choice.

The scheme would generate $216m from property sales to meet more than $770m in liabilities.

“That’s 25 cents to the dollar,” White told the Guardian. “As a proposition to our clients, it’s gut-wrenching. Many have been waiting for decades, and for this compromise to be handed to them – it’s devastating.”

*A pseudonym has been used to protect the survivor’s identity

• In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International