A couple is fighting over this $95m Point Piper mansion. Now a third party wants a share

The ownership behind one of the country’s most expensive houses, the Point Piper mansion Edgewater, has been frozen by the Supreme Court amid a high-stakes dispute between an estranged husband and wife battling to claim it.

Edgewater’s ultimate owner is not only a matter of contention between goldmining businessman John Changjin Li and Maria Meihong Yang, but also the litigation funder that has bankrolled a slew of court wins in exchange for almost half of it.

Edgewater exchanged in 2020 for $95 million, but only half of it has settled, and that half is now subject to freeze orders.Credit: Domain

This week’s freeze orders – issued on behalf of legal financing company MHN Asset Management – are just the latest in a litany of convoluted dealings over the property since it was sold five years ago for $95 million, and come as the title has accumulated eight mortgages and a potential tax bill of up to $25 million, depending on who ends up owning it.

Li was in residence at the Point Piper trophy home on Friday when approached for comment, but was short in his response: “I don’t have time for this, so f--- off, OK”. Yang also declined to respond, but the breakdown in their relations and the convoluted ownership structure behind the trophy home has been well-documented in a slew of court proceedings.

Edgewater was intended as a matrimonial home in 2020 when purchased by Li and his then new wife Yang, complete with one of the suburb’s few tennis courts, a private jetty and iconic views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

At the time it was the second-highest house price sale in the country, even though it was sold in two parts because it has long been configured as a duplex home to the Moss and Brender families behind the Katies fashion retail empire.

But before their second wedding anniversary – and with a looming settlement due on the first of the two apartments in Edgewater – that marriage had broken down. According to Yang’s affidavit recounting the fallout, she said she discovered in mid-2022 that Li had moved to Point Piper with his ex-wife Athena Changren Cheng. It was at this point that Yang moved into her $1.3 million unit in Zetland.

Things only worsened when, a month later, Yang said her corporate interests in Edgewater’s holding company, Point Piper One Pty Ltd, had been changed without her consent, voiding her 100 shares in the company.

Corporate records from that time show the company was restructured, splitting the ownership into three inter-related companies, of which Yang’s interest was diluted to include two of those companies by way of C-class shares.

Complicating matters was evidence from Li’s former wife Cheng that she had already loaned more than $30 million towards Edgewater.

John Changjin Li pictured at Lake Macquarie in 2022.Credit:

In Cheng’s evidence in the same proceedings, she also described being left in the dark over pertinent details, saying she had not been told that Li and Yang had been married for the previous two years. However, she was aware that Yang would be the shareholder of the company because neither Cheng nor Li had citizenship.

In the legal stoush that followed, Yang successfully had her ownership of Edgewater’s holding company restored to her name, putting her in the box seat to settle on the property, if only she had the funds to do so.

Financing Yang’s legal win – and a couple of other court matters after Cheng sought to call in the debt owing on Edgewater – was MHN Asset Management, which claims it was promised 45 of Yang’s 100 shares in Point Piper One as part of the funding arrangement.

But when MHN demanded she transfer the shares, she never did so.

What happened next is set to be argued before Justice Ashley Black in the Supreme Court in coming weeks, but corporate records show that within two days of MHN’s demand for its 45 shares, Yang’s 100 shares were forfeited. The company was again restructured to restore ownership to the three companies: Kingland AC, Point Piper Sun and Point Piper Yang.

A week after Yang’s 100 shares were voided, the first half of the Edgewater sale settled for $47,497,000 in the name of Point Piper One, then under Li’s control, and with Li already in residence.

Updated corporate records show Edgewater is also now home to Cheng.

The second apartment has not settled yet, but more than $20 million has been paid towards it.

In issuing the freeze orders this week, Acting Justice Monika Schmidt described Li’s role in the new corporate structure as “the director of these companies and, apparently, the controlling mind”.

According to MHN’s barrister Sinclair Gray, days after the litigation funder had demanded its shares in the company, Yang instead entered an agreement to transfer them to her estranged husband for $1 million.

Yang has not been paid the $1 million.

Gray argued that MHN sought the freeze orders because Yang had already tried to dispose of the assets and the only reason the deal fell over was that Li did not uphold his end of the bargain. “It wasn’t because she was not trying her best to dispose of the asset. It was because Mr Li didn’t do what he was meant to do,” Gray said.

Meanwhile, Yang disputes corporate records that show she is no longer sole owner of the company shares; she has launched proceedings to reinstate her sole ownership of the shares of Point Piper One.

“How that litigation is being funded is not apparent,” Schmidt said.

If Yang does succeed in re-establishing herself as the owner of Point Piper One, she will still need to contend with a litany of encumbrances on the title of Edgewater for further loans.

Chief among those is Revenue NSW, which according to Yang’s barrister Michael Wells is owed as much as $25 million from outstanding transfer duty, foreign owner duties, land tax and landholder duty.

“The state government will have first dibs on the property, and the residual loans to Cheng and others will get the rest,” Wells said.

“What, if anything, might be left at the end of the day remains unknown. Ms Yang doesn’t know the value of the 100 shares, and she isn’t the director and doesn’t have that information. Her only real property is the Zetland apartment.”

Edgewater was built as a single residence but converted into a duplex to be shared by the Moss and Brender families in 1985.Credit: Domain

The Zetland apartment, purchased by Yang in 2017 for $1.29 million, has a writ on title on behalf of MHN claiming an outstanding debt of almost $940,000 that it claims is owed on top of the 45 shares in Point Piper One.

Another caveat appeared on the Zetland property title on Friday for a funding agreement from Sophia Xue Chen.

Yang is set to return to court on Monday for her proceedings against Li, and again on Tuesday in the matter with MHN.

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