Court freezes assets of Paul and Amber Callender during probe of Queensland One Homes collapse
A SUPREME Court judge has frozen the assets of a couple linked to the devastating $6 million collapse of builder Queensland One Homes. What the court documents reveal is breathtaking.
Gold Coast
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A SUPREME Court judge has frozen the assets of a couple linked to the devastating $6 million collapse of builder Queensland One Homes.
Paul Callender is sole director of the failed company, while his wife Amber operates related firm Empire Constructions Pty Ltd, a company which a liquidator claimed may have engaged in illegal phoenix activities.
Queensland One Homes collapsed in July with debts that have climbed above $5.9 million to 100 small business owners, financiers and the Australian Taxation Office.
It has also emerged that:
* According to court documents, seven weeks before Queensland One Homes went into liquidation, Mr Callender instructed a Queensland One display village manager to change the names of houses “ready for the change to Empire”.
* It is alleged accountants prepared deeds transferring building contracts from Queensland One Homes to Empire Constructions three days before the company collapse.
* Liquidator Michael Caspaney has told the court in an affidavit he believed Queensland One Homes had been operating insolvent as early as March 31, 2016.
In response to a 640-page affidavit from liquidator Michael Caspaney, Justice Ann Lyons granted a freezing order of assets worth $7.1 million owned by the Callenders and three of their companies, including Empire Constructions.
The order forbids the pair from selling or diminishing the value of assets or moving them overseas, and permits them to spend $1000 each a week on basic living expenses.
They are also permitted to spend up to $40,000 on legal costs and to cover specified business expenses.
The couple will have the chance to respond to the freezing order at a hearing on November 23.
One of the now-frozen companies, Odyssey Heights Pty Ltd, owns three properties previously owned by Mr Callender.
His wife is sole director of Odyssey Heights, which was created three weeks after the collapse of Queensland One Homes.
“THE SUN WAS SHINING THROUGH THE FLOOR”
Mr Caspaney told creditors the Callenders’ solicitor had ceased acting for them and that it appeared to him that Mr Callender had breached his fiduciary duties as director and that what he had discovered could be “labelled phoenix activity”.
It is alleged Mr Callender instructed a manager of his Queensland One Homes display village to change the names of all the homes “ready for the change to Empire”, seven weeks before Queensland One went into liquidation.
The court documents include a copy of an email purportedly sent from Ms Callender a week before the collapse in which she instructs her lawyer to draft a letter for subcontractors to cease working on Queensland One Homes jobs, but “obviously we don’t want anything in the letter that references Empire”.
The lawyer allegedly replied with the letter and also a statement that he was reviewing the couple’s “personal asset protection”.
According to the documents, the couple’s accountants prepared the deeds that transferred building contracts from Queensland One Homes to Empire Constructions three days before the collapse of Queensland One Homes.
It is alleged original liquidator Anne-Marie Barley, appointed by Mr Callender but dropped by creditors a few weeks later, gave approval for Telstra to transfer email accounts from Queensland One Homes to Empire Constructions and that the new liquidator had not been able to recover all the accounts.
According to the documents lodged in the court, Mr Callender used $500,000 from Queensland One Homes to buy out shares owned by a former business partner in 2015.
Mr Caspaney told the court in his affidavit that he believed Queensland One Homes had been operating insolvent as early as March 31, 2016.
He named “a commercially unrealistic business model” and “a systematic drawing down of the company’s liquid assets in favour of related parties” had caused the insolvency.
Empire’s licence was suspended last month but was reinstated in October pending the results of an appeal lodged by Empire in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
Ms Callender has vowed the company would pay subbies what they are owed.
The liquidator has been frustrated by a lack of co-operation from both directors, and the destruction of company records after computer hard drives were left in the back of a ute and got wet.
Between them the Callenders own seven properties, and investigations are continuing into what other assets they own.
Five late-model Isuzu utes owned by Queensland One Homes have been repossessed.
The Gold Coast Bulletin revealed in August the Queensland Building and Construction Commission was warned by at least four different people about questionable practices by Queensland One Homes before it went into liquidation.
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In a statutory report to creditors last month, Mr Caspaney said he had found evidence of “false reporting” of work in progress values to the QBCC and in financial reports.
He found the company significantly under-reported how much it owed unsecured creditors when it went into liquidation — Mr Callender claimed the unsecured debts totalled $1.4 million when they were $5.1 million.
The report said investigations would continue into the transfer of shares, debts, assets and contracts between Queensland One and Ms Callender’s Empire Constructions.
It said investigations into the company’s trading patterns had “revealed some seeming anomalies associated with last-minute accounting adjustments”.
Mr Caspaney reported the suspected transfer of contracts between Queensland One and Empire for no cost, which he said could be “labelled as phoenix activity”.
THE PROPERTY PORTFOLIO:
Known property assets of Amber Callender:
● Office at Burnside Rd, Ormeau, bought for $418,000 in
March 2011.
● Acreage at Howard Creek Pl, Wongawallan, where the couple are building a new home, bought in November 2016 for $830,000.
● Waterfront home at Kunde Cres, at Hazeldean on the Sunshine Coast, bought for $700,000 in September 2014.
● Display home site at
Makayla Dr, Kalbar, bought
for $135,000 in May 2017.
● Home site at Mason St, Yarrabilba, bought for $181,000 in October 2015, with display home completed for $205,106 in 2016 and branded as an Empire Constructions home.
● Land in Strata Circuit, Yarrabilba, bought in April 2016, with a home built on it for an unknown sum.
Known joint property assets of Paul and Amber Callender:
● Joint ownership of a home in Alton Towers St, Springfield Lakes, land bought for $155,000 in April 2009, with a home built on it for an unknown sum.
● Luxury home in Currey Rd, Wongawallan, bought for $950,000 in 2010 and sold by the couple in May for $1.8 million.
Known property assets of Paul Callender:
● Zero.
Gold Coast construction company failures:
* August 2018: Commonwealth Games Village subcontractor Ware Building collapses with debts of $1 million
* July 2017: Queensland One Homes collapses with debts of $5.9 million
* April 2017: Bluestone Constructions goes into liquidation with debts of $6.8 million.
* February 2017: Batir Pty Ltd collapses with $1.98 million in debt spread across 167 unsecured creditors.
* December 2016: Cullen Group collapses owing subbies an estimated $18 million and leaving a string of uncompleted projects.
*October 2016: Newstart Homes, owned by now-former senator Bob Day, collapses owing staff up to $1 million with tradies’ debts estimated at more than $12 million.
* January 2016: The property arm of the Gold Coast Titans collapses owing subbies $1.6 million.
Originally published as Court freezes assets of Paul and Amber Callender during probe of Queensland One Homes collapse
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