Luxury Brisbane developer stung $6m in penthouse legal stoush

A developer behind one of Queensland’s most luxurious high-rise buildings has lost a legal stoush with a buyer after he pulled out of the deal under a sunset clause and resold for double.

Developer Damien Cavallucci.

A luxury developer behind one of the state’s grandest high-rise buildings has lost a legal stoush with a buyer after he pulled out of the deal under the sunset clause and resold for double.

Cav Gasworks Pty Ltd, a company owned by developer Damien Cavallucci, was ordered by the Chief Justice of the state’s Supreme Court to pay $6.1m to the buyer of two sub-penthouses in the Luminare building in Newstead, a company belonging to Brisbane businesswoman Yiping Jiang.

Cav Gasworks was found by the court to have reneged on the $4.2m off-the-plan sale to Ms Jiang in 2017 and on-sold both lots for $8.8m to other people after invoking the sunset clause in 2023. This second sale was more than double the purchase price under Ms Jiang’s contract.

Ms Jiang is a millionaire from Stretton in Brisbane’s southern suburbs and she agreed to buy two of the four sub-penthouses on level 24 of the building. Property prices skyrocketed between the 2017 contract date and 2023 when Cav Gasworks invoked the clause.

Damien Cavallucci. Picture: Portia Large.

In her decision handed down on Thursday June 12, Chief Justice Helen Bowskill ruled Cav Gasworks Pty Ltd’s purported termination of the contract, on 13 April 2023, in reliance upon the sunset clause, “was unlawful, invalid and of no effect”.

She found that Ms Jiang’s purchase contract remained on foot after 13 April, 2023.

Cavcorp’s Luminare development at Newstead.

The $6.1m is calculated as the difference between the $10.3m market value of the two apartments on the date the contract ought to have been completed, and the $4.2m contract value agreed in 2017.

Ms Jiang is also entitled to retain the $420,000 deposit, the Chief Justice ruled.

The letter purporting to terminate the purchase contract on 13 April 2023 states that Cav Gasworks Pty Ltd “experienced development and building approval issues involving the amalgamation of lots that was critical to the overall project as well as construction and material delays due to Covid and the global pandemic, floods, rain events, supply chain and labour shortages which extended the completion date past the Sunset Date”.

Cavcorp’s Luminare development at Newstead.

Ms Jiang’s lawyers replied to the letter refusing to accept the purported termination, and later sued.

Cav Gasworks Pty Ltd sold one of Ms Jiang’s apartments to another person for $3.5m on 27 September 2023 and the other one for $5.3m to another buyer on May 1, 2024.