Ex-Wallabies star James Slipper in legal fight over $3m Brisbane mansion

A Queensland rugby star is embroiled in a bitter legal stoush with a tenant, with the player trying to forcibly sell the tenant’s $3m Brisbane mansion.

James Slipper during his playing days. Picture: Saeed Khan / AFP

A Queensland rugby star is embroiled in a bitter legal stoush with a tenant, with the player trying to forcibly sell the tenant’s $3m Brisbane mansion.

Ex Wallabies Spring tour captain and former Qld Reds star James Slipper is fighting in the Supreme Court in Brisbane where the court last month issued a temporary injunction on his bid to evict the owner of a mansion on acreage at Mackenzie and forcibly sell the home.

Slipper wants to sell the home of Harry Lloyd-Williams at 298 Mt Petrie Rd, Mackenzie, after Slipper claimed Lloyd-Williams put the home up as security for a $399,285 loan Slipper allegedly made in 2022 when Lloyd-Williams fell behind in his rent.

Lloyd-Williams, 74, is the tenant at a commercial property Slipper owns at 8-10 Staple St Seventeen Mile Rocks, purchased in August 2015.

James Slipper is emroiled in a legal stoush. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

He runs a business making and selling audio equipment from the Seventeen Mile Rocks warehouse, but told the court he fell behind in his rent when the warehouse was forced to shut down after it flooded several times when the building’s roof was destroyed by rain bombs in 2019, 2020 and 2024.

Mr Lloyd-Williams says he was also struck down with long-Covid-19 and that the business had shut for periods during the pandemic.

Mr Lloyd-Williams is the owner of Acoustic Technologies Electronics Pty Ltd a business which installed audio systems for the Supreme and District Court building in Brisbane where his case is being fought, as well as at in Brisbane’s St Pauls cathedral, Sydney’s Queens Square law courts, the New Zealand parliament and Logan Entertainment Centre.

Mr Lloyd-Williams has placed the business into voluntary administration.

Slipper, from the Gold Coast, is the son of struck off barrister Robin Slipper and nephew of former federal parliamentary speaker Peter Slipper.

Slipper’s lawyer told the court in his affidavit that he sent a a notice of exercising power of sale by email to Mr Lloyd-Williams on April 24 last year.

Then on October 30, he followed this up by serving Mr Lloyd-Williams with a notice of exercise of power of sale, including a demand for possession of the property.

After a brief pre-trial hearing before Justice Soraya Ryan on February 4, Justice Ryan ordered that Slipper be restrained from exercising or purporting to exercise his power of sale under the mortgage registered on Mr Lloyd-Williams’ home until judgment or further order.

James Slipper was a long-serving Wallabies star. Picture: Saeed Khan / AFP--

Mr Lloyd-Williams has given an undertaking to give to Slipper monthly statements showing the amount secured by his first registered mortgage on his Mr Mackenzie home.

Slipper resisted the injunction blocking him from selling the home, arguing that instead he wanted Mr Lloyd-Williams to pay $399,285 into the courts trust account, the amount he claims is “due and owing under the mortgage”.

Peter Sams, counsel for Lloyd-Williams, alleges in his written submission that there was no funds advanced under the loan, so Slipper has no right of sale to exercise.

Mr Lloyd-Williams told the court in his affidavit that he has lived in his four-bedroom, five-car garage home with a guest wing and pool for 36 years.

The home sits on more than five acres, and has been appraised as worth up to $3m.

He estimates he has equity in the property between $1.4m to $1.9m.

He told the court there is more than sufficient equity in the home to pay his mortgage and to cover Slipper’s “alleged loan” including any interest which may accrue between now and the end of the legal stoush.

“If the property were sold by (James Slipper) the property may not be sold for the best price. I perceive that there is a risk the property will be sold undervalue if sold by (James Slipper),” Mr Lloyd-Williams wrote in his affidavit filed in court.

On November 21 last year Mr Lloyd-Williams’ lawyer wrote to Slippers lawyers telling them: “Our client denies that it owes your client the sum of $389,950 and our client denies that any amount is owed by him personally to your client. As such, our client considers that your client is not entitled to deliver any notice of exercise of power of sale.

James Slipper during his playing days. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

“We are instructed that the ‘principal sum of $338,909 as defined in the mortgage was never advanced, made available to our client.

“Our client consider that the mortgage does not secure any liability. As such, the notice of exercise of power of sale and the mortgage itself should be withdrawn”.

Lloyd-Williams states inhis affidavit that although James Slipper was the landlord and he worked at the Seventeen Mile warehouse “almost every day for several years, I virtually never dealt with James Slipper directly”.

“I dealt with his father Robin Slipper,” Mr Lloyd-Williams wrote in his affidavit.

“I know from my dealings with Robin Slipper that he used to be a solicitor, but was struck off about five years ago.”

The case will continue, with James Slipper filing a statement of claim on March 4.

No future court date has been set.

Originally published as Ex-Wallabies star James Slipper in legal fight over $3m Brisbane mansion