Luxury fashion designer Heidi Middleton and high-end hotelier Michael Malouf’s oceanfront Noosa property in court-ordered sale to break bitter stalemate

Sass & Bide co-founder Heidi Middleton and her luxury hotelier husband Michael Malouf’s bitter battle with an octogenarian to buy her share of prime oceanfront Noosa land has ended with a epic court-ordered twist.

Sass & Bide co-founder Heidi Middleton has been locked in a battle to acquire prime Noosa oceanfront land.

A prime oceanfront block of land half-owned by luxury hotelier Michael Malouf and his glamorous fashion designer wife Heidi Middleton will be put up for sale by a statutory trustee after a court ordered the sale to break a stalemate with the octogenarian co-owner.

In a decision handed down on January 10, Supreme Court Justice Tom Sullivan ordered insolvency expert Glenn O’Kearney GT Advisory & Consulting and lawyer Tim Elliott to act as statutory trustees to the former sand mine and dairy farm on Teewah Beach Rd, Noosa North Shore.

The trustees must appoint a national commercial real estate agent to put the whole property, which sits north of the Noosa River, up for sale.

The land in question

Mr Malouf applied to court to enforce the sale of the Noosa land via the appointment of statutory trustees for sale of the 40.5ha beachfront with 466 metres of beach frontage, after he and wife Sass & Bide co-founder Ms Middleton bought half of the interests in the land but were unable to secure the remainder.

The court heard that Mr Malouf and Ms Middleton, who married in 2021, hope to build a family home on the site and expected to buy the remaining 50 per cent share from Jill Alexia Cameron, who initially agreed to put her share up for public auction on June 23 last year but withdrew two days earlier.

Heidi Middleton and Michael Malouf on their wedding day in 2021. Photo from Instagram

Mrs Cameron’s family have owned the land “at least from 1979”, the court heard.

The whole site was initially put on the auction block in April 2022 but was passed in with no real interest, the court heard.

Mr Malouf is a part-owner of The Calile Hotel in Fortitude Valley and he is currently developing a 178-room resort plan on Serenity Close in Noosa Heads.

The court heard that Mr Malouf initially earmarked the Noosa North Shore property for a “commercial use, ancillary to” the Noosa Heads resort his family is developing at Serenity Close.

The stunning 40ha property at Noosa North Shore

Ms Middleton and Mr Malouf bought the first slice of the Noosa North Shore property – a one-sixth interest on April 20 last year from 90-year-old Janice Marie Herron, from Ashgrove West.

Two months later they purchased two more one-sixth interests in the land from Kay Teresa Cohen, 80, from West End, and Sharon Janet Pie, 80, from Fig Tree Pocket.

On the day Ms Cameron withdrew the property from auction – 21 June last year – Mr Malouf wrote to the solicitor acting for the 80-year-old, from New Farm, stating that “once on title, and as tenants in common with Jill, we will then move immediately to make application for the statutory sale of the entire property … where we will look to acquire the balance share”.

Mr Malouf’s application to the Supreme Court for the appointment of the statutory trustee was opposed by Mrs Cameron’s ex-husband Ian Cameron, who argued the sale should be delayed until it could fetch a higher price after he removes radioactive sand.

The land at Noosa North Shore

Mr Cameron Snr does not presently own a slice of the land, but may be interested in bidding when it is put up for sale, the court heard.

Justice Sullivan declined to order the Noosa land be split – or partitioned – between Mr Malouf and Ms Middleton and Ms Cameron, as an alternative to the sale by the trustees.

Justice Sullivan stated that partition of land can be ordered by the court in circumstances “where the sale was being sought out of vindictiveness or animosity” but this was not the case here.

He concluded that the evidence did not support vindictiveness or animosity on the part of Mr Malouf and Ms Middleton.

“I see nothing in these facts as supporting that Mr Malouf and Ms Middleton were acting vindictively in subsequently seeking the appointment of statutory trustees for sale of the Noosa Land. The evidence supports that they wished to purchase the whole of the Noosa Land so that they could build a residential home,” Justice Sullivan stated in his reasons.

Mr Cameron Snr had unsuccessfully submitted that Mr Malouf’s calls or emails with the real estate agent from the April 2022 failed auction, and the solicitor for Ms Cameron, in relation to the potential purchase of Ms Cameron’s half interest at a further proposed public auction “discloses Mr Malouf’s vindictiveness”.

No one involved in the property dispute is insolvent or bankrupt.

The Courier-Mail contacted Mr Malouf and he declined to comment.