Mapped: Jean Nassif’s trail of destruction

The accounting behind Jean Nassif’s apartment blocks was just as dodgy as the construction, a liquidator claims, with tens of millions of dollars left over to fix serious defects funnelled into other companies the fugitive developer owned.

The accounting behind Jean Nassif’s apartment blocks was just as dodgy as the construction, a liquidator claims, with tens of millions of dollars left over to fix serious defects funnelled into other companies the fugitive developer owned.

Brian Silvia, who is trying to reclaim money to fix at least $30 million worth of defects at a Toplace development at Canterbury, alleges the project’s coffers were emptied by construction costs being inflated after completion.

“To say the cost of the project increased by 50 per cent is just crap,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

Liquidator Brian Silvia.

Property developer Jean Nassif.

He told The Telegraph that in another Nassif apartment block he had uncovered “what my instincts tell me could very well be a secret commission” paid to a real estate agent to convince purchasers to release their deposits to Toplace.

Mr Silvia is liquidator of eight “special purpose vehicles” (SPVs) established to develop separate Toplace apartment blocks. Other sources suggested there is a move to have him appointed to more apartments built by Nassif, who remains overseas and is facing an arrest warrant over $150m fraud allegations.

Two of the blocks Mr Silvia is working on are among seven Toplace projects currently under Building Works Rectifications Orders (BWRO) imposed by NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler due to “serious defects”.

One of the two is the 276-unit Vicinity complex on Canterbury Road. Its SPV is called JKN Field – JKN are the initials of Nassif, who is its owner and sole director.

JKN Field was incorporated in 2013. Vicinity was finished in 2016. Two years later, the owners corporation commenced legal proceedings alleging defective building works.

In 2022, the first of five BWROs were issued on Vicinity and the owners corporation had one of its three buildings propped up.

In April this year, the owners corporation, Toplace and Nassif agreed to resolve their dispute, which should have seen the defects rectified.

But the settlement wasn’t signed before Toplace went into administration in July.

Mr Silvia recently reported to creditors that JKN Field should have made a “profit of $35m, subject to defect rectification costs”.

But that profit “has been taken off the balance sheet by inflating Toplace construction costs to be distributed somewhere else within the Toplace group of companies.”

The 2016 profit and loss statement put total costs at a little over $70m. But JKN Field’s tax return for that period – filed in 2020 – said total costs were nearly $104m.

There are at least $30m worth of defects at Vicinity Apartments in Canterbury.

In his creditors’ report, he wrote: “It is apparent the modus operandi of the Toplace companies in relation to the owners corporations claims was to fob them off for years, failing to undertake the work in circumstances where projects, which generated profits, have now been found to have no residual assets enabling funding of defect rectification works.”

He also reported that shortly before Toplace collapsed, the JKN Field borrowed $5.67m – at a 25 per cent interest rate, despite being secured – with most of the money used to pay “a creditor of another entity within Toplace”.

Mr Silvia said that he hoped to be able to set aside some transactions and claw “back some money for the proper claimants,” being apartment owners.

Building Commissioner David Chandler. Picture: NCA NewsWire/ Dylan Robinson

Meanwhile, the Building Commissioner, Mr Chandler, told The Telegraph it was “most likely” that “two or three lenders” which financed risky developers would have to take ownership of – and responsibility for – failed Sydney projects.

In October, Mr Chandler struck the first such agreement with the lender on a defective Parramatta development that went into receivership.

Mr Chandler would not speculate on which financiers were in his crosshairs.

“But there are at least two or three projects where a similar outcome could be applied,” Mr Chandler said.

“It’s a real power not to be ignored.”