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Fugitive Jean Nassif’s waterfront Chiswick house hits market
By Lucy Macken
The ultra-contemporary waterfront home in Chiswick of fugitive developer Jean Nassif hit the property market on Wednesday, kicking off a long anticipated sales campaign by administrators of collapsed Toplace Group.
The sales campaign comes as Nassif remains in hiding in Lebanon with an outstanding arrest warrant in his name and administrators of the collapsed construction giant count up debts of more than $1.88 billion to more than 600 creditors.
The three-level residence on deep waterfront features a vast floor plan that includes six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a swimming pool, sauna, marble finishes, an internal lift and a home theatre. It goes to auction on December 6.
Belle Property Concord’s Joe Bousimon said there was no price guide ahead of this weekend’s first open inspection and no comparable sales on offer to indicate price expectations.
The suburb record was reset this year at $13.3 million when the home of Bankstown dentist Dr Phuoc Mai and Kelly Do sold in June.
Nassif bought the 968-square-metre property on the Parramatta River in 2015 for $4.9 million and completed the three-level house in 2019, the same year his home video gifting a yellow Lamborghini worth $480,000 to his then wife Nissy went viral on social media.
The developer has encountered challenging times recently. Toplace had its building licence cancelled in 2022 and Nassif was barred from running a building company for 10 years after a series of major defects were uncovered at developments.
An arrest warrant was issued for him in June last year over an alleged bank fraud in which he and his daughter, Ashlyn, were alleged to have falsified presale contracts to deceive Westpac into providing a $150 million loan. Ashlyn is defending the charges that are before Burwood Local Court.
Administrators have launched legal action against Nassif over his alleged withdrawal of $10 million from the Westpac loan facility which he transferred to the Bank of Beirut account owned by a relative.
Nassif’s health has also suffered, which his lawyers claim has prevented his return to Australia.
There was a hernia repair in June of last year and a “post-operative infected seroma”. There were complaints related to his psychiatric and medical problems flagged this year during Nassif’s bid to keep his defamation battle with broadcaster Ray Hadley before the courts.
Six months ago, the Federal Court rejected Nassif’s bid to maintain the defamation case.
Latest corporate records lodged by Toplace’s administrators Antony Resnick and Suelen McCallum, of dVT Group show more than $8.2 million has been paid out to creditors since the company went into administration.
The Chiswick property’s title carries a Westpac mortgage, as well as seven caveats.
Of those caveats, one was lodged by Nissy Nassif in March, who claims an interest in the property by virtue of marriage. The others were lodged by a slew of non-bank lenders, Bunnings and steel construction company Infrabuild Construction Solutions.