Michael Kemp’s property records reveal his company’s luxury portfolio

Controversy is nothing new for this wealthy Brisbane lawyer who continues to practice after his main trading company collapsed owing more than $6.2m – including $1.5m to the tax man – as records show he still owns three luxurious Hope Island mansions.

Controversy is nothing new for Michael Kemp, the wealthy Brisbane lawyer who continues to practice after his main trading company collapsed last month owing more than $6.2m.

He previously had one of his companies tipped into liquidation in 2013 over a $240,000 tax debt.

The next year Kemp ceased being a partner of law firm Rostron Carlyle after previously overseeing its lucrative personal injury division.

That followed him being dragged into a case where a client was an alleged drug customer of the Hells Angels.

Michael Kemp's Lamborghini. Picture: Instagram

Kemp maintained he had no knowledge of the drugs and wanted to maintain “a good name for myself’’.

Rostron Carlyle also dismissed Kemp as a director of a company that owned the firm’s multi-million dollar Brisbane premises.

Kemp disputed that he had been booted from Rostron Carlyle, saying he always planned to leave and start his own firm, Kemp Law.

To help fund the new business, Kemp put up for sale a $10m property portfolio that included a $4.5m Jollys Lookout mansion and a $2.6m spread on Hope Island.

Kemp, who once zipped around town in a Lamborghini, still has a foothold on Hope Island, where he owns three luxurious homes he acquired through a family-controlled company over the past four years.

A house at The Address, Hope Island bought by one of Kemp’s companies for $799,999 in October 2017.

Property records show that the company paid $1.7m for a six-bedroom abode on Vardon Lane in 2019 and $1.77m for a larger dwelling on Forest Hills Drive in 2017 that features five bathrooms.

That same year $800,000 went for yet another home at The Address on Hope Island.

Meanwhile, Kemp’s wife, Candice, is an Instagram devotee who co-founded the Coco Bliss café group.

Michael Kemp's wife Candice. Picture: Instagram

She’s also involved in the skincare business Supple Skin and beauty firm Fluff Brow Co.

Back in 2019, Michael Kemp was fined $1000 and disqualified from driving for a month after pleading guilty to drink driving on the Gold Coast.

The Courier-Mail this week revealed Kemp had provided legal services under the Kemp Law banner since 2013, spruiking his practice as “No Win No Fee Injury Compensation Experts’’.

But in moves raising a few eyebrows, he made a series of sudden changes less than a week before the crash of Kemp Law Pty Ltd.

One of Kemp’s properties at Hope Island, which was bought for $1.7m in April 2019 - Photo Supplied Real Estate.com

Records show he resigned as sole director and secretary on February 17 and was replaced by Dawn Nicholls, a 77-year-old woman understood to be one of his relatives.

That same day the company changed its name to White Dance Studio and Aerobics Pty Ltd.

Just five days later, Nicholls appointed two Melbourne-based accountants at PKF to wind up the entity.

A third Hope Island property, bought for $1.77m in April 2017 - Photo Supplied Real Estate.com

Among those out of pocket are the tax man, who is chasing nearly $1.5m, and litigation funder JustKapital, hoping to recoup $1.52m. Kemp himself has put in a claim for $515,000.
Meanwhile, Kemp is still doing business as Kemp Law but via a newly-created entity called Kemp Law Qld Pty Ltd, which he registered on November 20.

It continues to trade from the very same Newstead offices as its now-defunct predecessor.