Insta-famous tradie in legal battle with burger bar over alleged unpaid $60k bill
An Instagram-famous Gold Coast tradie who regularly appears in his influencer wife’s social media posts is embroiled in a legal stoush over the flashy fit-out of a burger bar.
Police & Courts
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The company of an Instagram-famous Gold Coast tradie who regularly appears in his influencer wife’s social media posts is embroiled in a legal stoush with a millionaire travel baron who he accuses of failing to pay a bill for a flashy interior fit-out of a Portuguese burger bar.
Shopfit Co Pty Ltd, a company wholly owned by carpenter Lachlan Tony Waugh, 33, from Tallai, brought civil proceedings against Sydney man Dany Girgis for payment of $59,516.
According to the claim filed in the District Court in Southport, Shopfit is claiming that Mr Girgis and his company Kokomo Living failed to pay for part of the work Shopfit completed last year on the fit-out of the Beloporto burger bar in the tourist strip on the corner of Elkhorn Ave and The Esplanade Surfers Paradise.
Shopfit alleges Kokomo Living and Mr Girgis failed to pay an invoice for $22,139 due on July 25 last year and an invoice for $13,069 due on November 10, and only paid part of a $44,297 invoice.
Shopfit states in its claim that it emailed Kokomo and Mr Girgis asking them to pay on November 3, but that they “refused or neglected” to pay “without any reasonable cause”.
The company also claims it gave written notice to Kokomo Living and Mr Girgis on November 3 that it was ceasing work on the burger bar due to the non-payment, a claim Mr Girgis denies.
In December, Shopfit lodged caveats over Mr Girgis’s Ferny Ave, Surfers Paradise apartment, and his two shops, blocking the sale while the dispute is ongoing.
Mr Girgis, 41, who lives in a $4.5m waterfront home at Kogarah Bay in Sydney, admits the invoices remain unpaid and is countersuing Shopfit alleging Shopfit’s work was shoddy and incomplete.
He has asked the court to award him damages for breach of contract and loss of opportunity.
Mr Girgis also alleges the delays to finish the fit-out caused him to lose his burger tenant, as well as rental income and miss out on a lucrative residential property investment opportunity.
Mr Girgis claims he had to pay new tradies to finish the store so it could open its doors.
He alleges Shopfit has negligently failed to exercise reasonable care to finish the work required in accordance with the plans, causing Kokomo Living to lose $197,400, including $94,000 to rectify incorrect or incomplete work due to water damage or poor finishes, as well as $16,257 in lost rent and $27.570 for additional electrical work because cables were wrong.
Mr Girgis also alleges in his filed counterclaim that Shopfit’s estimator Travis Bloom “misrepresented” that the fit-out would take a month to complete, and had he known it would take much longer Mr Girgis and Kokomo Living would not have signed the contract for the works.
He also claims that the alleged misrepresentation by Shopfit caused him to lose an opportunity to buy a $1.5m block of flats at Zillmere, in Brisbane’s north, for below market value in March.
Mr Girgis is a travel agent and property investor with investment properties in Brisbane’s Zillmere and the Gold Coast and he owns schoolies travel specialist Sure Thing Services.
He has owned two shops on The Esplanade for nearly a decade, paying $1m for one store in 2013 and $520,000 for a second smaller store in 2012.
Mr Waugh is the husband of top Gold Coast influencer and mum Skye Wheatley, 28, who shot to fame in 2014 after placing third on reality TV show Big Brother.
They met on the dating application Tinder.
Shopfit has installed shop fittings for companies such as beauty salon Higher Self, burger chain Burger Urge, lingerie retailer Simone Perele in Docklands in Melbourne and Tommy’s Italian in Currumbin.
Belporto never opened in Mr Girgis’ Surfers Paradise shopfront, instead a new tenant took their place.
No date has been set for hearing.
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