Socialite Karin Upton Baker settles her $18 million debts
KARIN Upton Baker settled legal dispute over unpaid mortgage, hours before she was due to be grilled on personal finances and marriage.
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SOCIALITE Karin Upton Baker settled a legal dispute with bankers over an $18 million unpaid mortgage yesterday, just hours before she was due to be grilled on her personal finances and marriage.
Ms Upton Baker was to be questioned about her claim, in court documents, that husband Gary Baker "enjoyed such an ascendancy" over her that she could not "make any worthwhile judgment" over the mortgage.
The experienced businesswoman had claimed she was "reduced to tears at her husband's insistence she sign" mortgage documents "under threat that, if she did not do so, the family would 'lose everything'."
The out-of-court settlement may have saved the Hermes Australia boss some embarrassment but she may now lose her treasured three-level penthouse in Elizabeth Bay.
While details of the Supreme Court settlement are secret, they are expected to include a clause that Ms Upton Baker pay a sum of money, meaning the four-bedroom, five-bathroom apartment will probably be put on the market.
It was put up for sale a year ago but did not sell.
Hemmes boss settles legal woes
Ms Upton Baker, who earns $360,000 a year, was sued by lender Challenger Managed Investments after she stopped repaying the mortgage she took out in December 2006.
As part of preparations for the three-week hearing due to begin yesterday, Ms Upton Baker was forced to hand over hundreds of financial records, both personal and involving Hermes Australia.
The settlement came more than two years after the bank sued the 50-year-old to force her to repay the debt.
She has sold off assets in the past year, including an apartment on a lower floor in the same Elizabeth Bay building in June last year for $950,000.
Two months ago she sold another smaller apartment in the building for $325,000. The investment properties at Bondi and Bellevue Hill which triggered her financial problems have been sold by the banks. Her husband Gary Baker, an embattled property developer, has a Rolls-Royce up for sale and is facing bankruptcy.
Ms Upton Baker's barrister Malcolm Gracie told the court "the matter in principle has been settled", but would need to be formally settled in court at 10am today.