The Sell: Tax fraud conviction sees 1880s cottage up for auction
The Picton home of Lauren Cranston, the convicted subordinate participant in Australia’s largest tax fraud and money laundering scheme, has been listed for July 27 auction.
NSW
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The Picton home of Lauren Cranston, the convicted subordinate participant in Australia’s largest tax fraud and money laundering scheme, has been listed for July 27 auction.
The unrenovated three-bedroom, one-bathroom house last traded when purchased for $678,000 in 2016 with her ex-partner, who is the father of their six-year-old daughter.
Cranston was sentenced in May last year to eight years’ jail with a five-year non-parole period.
Her older brother Adam Cranston copped a 15-year sentence last August with a 10-year non-parole period as an architect in the $105m Plutus Payroll tax fraud scheme.
Her 1880 residence has been vested to the Commonwealth of Australia.
The Campbell St house, which sits on 1062 sqm with a bullnose veranda, is being marketed by Conor Arnold of Richardson & Wrench as an “affordable home in one of Picton’s most sought after areas”.
Justice Anthony Payne presided over the Supreme Court case which ruled Cranston benefited by “financial gain”.
But unlike the main conspirators, Lauren Cranston received comparatively small remuneration for her back office role. However, the judgment noted she appeared to believe that she and her co-conspirators had done nothing wrong amid the dishonesty.
The Crown submitted her participation secured about $181,000, with some moneys used to pay the 10 per cent deposit and stamp duty to purchase the Picton house.
The property was initially frozen pursuant to a proceeds of crime application in May 2017 after the Australian Federal Police’s Operation Elbrus raided 27 homes and businesses across Sydney.
The court later heard funds received by Adam Cranston included $1.5m towards a house at Miranda, $1.2m on the Vacy acreage where $170,000 in buried cash was found, and an $826,000 Burraneer site with water views.
The AFP had commenced its investigation in September 2016 into the tax fraud which began in 2014 and involved the intention to deprive the Taxation Commissioner of Pay As You Go Withholding (PAYGW) amounts and Goods and Services Tax (GST).
WOMBAT DIGGING AN EXCITING NEW ADVENTURE
Clint “Wombat” Price, who was in the popular renovation double act Sticks and Wombat on the 2017 series of The Block, is selling his Milton home.
Price and wife Ruby Walton have renovated and extended the property following their $625,000 purchase in 2020.
They are seeking $890,000 to $970,000 through Kirsty Schultz and Brendan Shipp, of McGrath Estate Agents Mollymook.
The Princes Highway offering is a newly refurbished, three-bedroom, one-bathroom house.
The single-level home features woodfire heating.
Set on a 921sq m block, the dwelling has a covered veranda with mountain views from its rear deck.
The couple added an extra bedroom and study, plus a large entertainment area and garage.
As well, they re-insulated the home and installed double-glazed windows and ceiling fans to make it more sustainable and reduce heating and cooling costs.
Price has lived and worked on the NSW South Coast for 30 years.
“Even though we renovated this house to be a forever home, we have decided to take on another adventure, maybe even another renovation,” he told The Sell.
Price and Mark “Sticks” Croker finished fourth in season 13 of The Block, which was won by Josh Barker and Elyse Knowles, whose house was bought by comedian Dave Hughes.
Price and Crocker shared a $130,000 bonus on auction day.
Croker is also still on the South Coast, spending $880,000 in 2022 with wife Terri in an off-market deal at Cudmirrah, just north of Berrara. They sold their nearby home for $1.62m.
The Block seems set to go ahead next year at Daylesford, 114km from Melbourne, after an intervention by Victoria’s Planning Minister, Sonya Kilkenny.
AUDI KING’S SOUND INVESTMENT IN MANSION’S REVIVAL
The $30.35m Jenner House, Potts Point’s second-most expensive home, is set for a revival.
Billionaire audio king Peter Freedman, the founder of Rode Microphones and best known for paying $9m for late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain’s guitar, has submitted $10.75m plans to update the 1870s mansion.
It was initially called Stramshall when designed by colonial architect Edmund Blacket for Lebbeus Hordern of the well-known retail dynasty.
The changes proposed by Hector Abrahams Architects are modest, with its service wing being reconstructed into an orchid house – a glass extension with an internal spiral staircase.
Under the plans, a lift will also be added to the Macleay St address as well as a snooker room.
Rode Microphones, which was started by his father, Henry, and employs 447 staff, recently reported a $28m annual profit, down on the previous $42m. It issued a $32.8m fully franked dividend.
Worth $1.52bn, Freedman sits in 98th place on the latest Rich 250 List by The Australian.
Meanwhile, just down the hill, billionaire steel tsar Sanjeev Gupta and wife Nicola are proposing $10.04m in renovations to their grand Italianate mansion, Bomera.
The historic Wylde St home was purchased for $34m in 2019. It was bought by the Bomera corporate trust fronted by Aremob Pty Ltd (Bomera spelt backwards) and directed by Ande + Co lawyer Nitij Pal, having initially been directed by Bell Potter stockbroker Les Owen.
Under the upgrade, the Guptas want a basement garage with vehicle access via Cowper Wharf Rd, a new lower-ground level under the main house, stables that will accommodate guest rooms, plus a swimming pool with light voids.
There will also be a sauna, spa, yoga room, cinema and a whisky room.
It was 2017 when Gupta arrived in Australia, acquiring the then-beleaguered Whyalla steelworks near Adelaide.
MINING FAMILY STRIKES PAYDIRT
Bantry, the relocated farmhouse on a 4.5ha Burradoo estate, has been sold for $5.37m to the well-known eastern suburbs Curtis family.
The 4.5ha Moss Vale Rd property was listed last year with a $6.1m to $6.4m price guide through Drew Lindsay Sotheby’s International Realty.
The 1885 weatherboard homestead was relocated onto the then vacant property by racing car enthusiast John Carter after the building block’s late 1980s purchase for $335,000.
The purchaser shareholders are miner Nicholas Curtis, wife Angela and their daughters – publicist Sophie Calpis and transformational coach Erin Levee.
It comes with a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house with open fireplaces. Surrounded by wide verandas, there are several sets of French doors with garden views.
There is a guest cottage adjacent to a walled kitchen garden. Its equestrian facilities include a stables complex, tack room, day yards, plus hot and cold wash bays.
The property, which sits between Burradoo and Moss Vale, close to the Briars Country Lodge, last sold for $1.625m in 2013.
The first buyer of the estate with its relocated home was the tree loving, ex-federal environment minister turned lobbyist and commentator Graham Richardson who paid $725,000 in 1995 through WJ Bridges agent Drew Lindsay and sold for $1.13 million in 2012.
PropTrack puts Burradoo’s four bedroom median at $2.5m, 10 per cent down annually after 25 sales.
MOURNING AT HARBOURFRONT ROCKLEIGH
There has been mourning at Rockleigh on Wolseley Rd, Point Piper, which ranks as the year’s highest sale at a reputed yet to settle $85m.
The retired lawyer Alistair Harvey-Sutton, husband of its owner Dr Philippa Harvey-Sutton, died on June 30 with the funeral midweek at St Mark’s Church, Darling Point.
After being admitted as a solicitor in 1957, he worked for several city firms and then as a sole solicitor from 1973 until ceasing practice in 2020.
Philippa inherited the property in 2016 from her mother Val Rundle, who was an art collector and Egyptian archaeology enthusiast, and the wife of Dr Philip Rundle, who’d purchased the harbourfront home for $325,000 in 1977.
The home which sits on 1284 sqm has been sold to recycled shopping bag businessman Frank Qiang Geng.
Two years ago Alistair Harvey-Sutton gave his recollections of his war years schooling to the Old Cranbrookians’ Association magazine.
“In May 1942, Sydney was shelled by a Japanese submarine, and midget submarines torpedoed vessels in the harbour” he recalled.
“That night, my family hurried down to our air raid shelter in the garage on Kent Rd.
“I was aged 9 and found it all extremely exciting and dangerous.”
IT’S A BUDDY BIG MOVE
Retired Swans champion Lance “Buddy” Franklin and wife Jesinta have listed their Gold Coast hinterland home, Villa Casa, for an August 10 auction.
Their plan is to buy acreage and commission Tidal Constructions, which built Villa Casa, to erect a luxury farmhouse.
The couple bought the Reedy Creek mansion, on 4497sq m, for $8.75m in November 2022.
It attracted an amazing 1300 realestate.com.au page views on its first day.
EARLY WAVE FOR BEACH COTTAGE
Suzanne and Tony Maple-Brown accepted a pre-auction bid for the weekend offering of their redundant Barrenjoey Rd, Palm Beach, property.
Palmyra, their expansive Thyra Rd estate, sits below the 872sq m hillside home.
The restored 1950s cottage had been listed with $3.1 million-plus hopes by McGrath Pittwater agent Laura Mears, who sold it to North Shore buyers who will ultimately use it permanently.
DUO TO TACKLE THE NEXT PHASE
Recent St George Illawarra Dragons NRL retiree Tautau Moga and wife Toni have sold their home at Warners Bay for $940,000.
Harcourts Newcastle+Lake Macquarie agent Sam Tsiaousis had given the renovated house a $895,000 guide.
The three-bedroom Lisa Ave abode, 1km from the lake’s edge, cost the couple $655,000 while he was playing at the Newcastle Knights in 2019.
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