A controversial Gosford businessman, who is fighting an eighth attempt to bankrupt him, has been stripped of his control over the affairs of a wealthy 82-year-old man with dementia.
When Trish McInnes attempted to visit her elderly father, Joe Lagan, in Gosford Hospital last Christmas, she was shocked when informed she needed permission from a man she’d never met, Valentino Kovacic.
Valentino Kocavic and his wife Tracey in front of their Eat Street Cafe in Gosford.
Kovacic, 56, had obtained enduring guardianship over her father and his power of attorney, which enabled him to control Lagan’s finances. Kovavic then exercised his right as guardian to refuse to allow McInnes to visit her father.
The Herald has revealed that the ownership of Lagan’s Porsche Macan had been transferred to Kovacic’s wife, Tracey, a struck-off greyhound trainer.
On Tuesday, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal issued orders revoking Kovacic’s enduring guardianship and replacing him with Lagan’s daughter.
Kovacic’s power of attorney has also been revoked, and Lagan’s business affairs will be managed by the NSW Trustee and the NSW Trustee and Guardian.
Trish McInnes with her father, Joe Lagan, on her wedding day.
During the hearing, Kovacic told the tribunal he was happy to resign his duties managing Lagan’s affairs as he was struggling to untangle Lagan’s financial affairs, including Lagan’s inexplicable cash withdrawals of $166,000 and $55,000, payments to lawyers, a $500,000 bank guarantee and a deposit on a Gosford apartment.
When a tribunal member asked if Kovacic could supply information regarding Lagan’s finances, Kovacic said he had lots of documents but he’d have to find them.
Kovacic’s latest bankruptcy hearing was meant to be heard in the Federal Court at the same time he was giving evidence at the tribunal. In 2017 La Trobe Financial obtained a judgment against Kovacic in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. The $1.37 million judgment debt, with interest accruing at $450 per day, relates to a mortgage on a property development in Mandurah, south of Perth.
The bankruptcy hearing has been adjourned until October 24 as Kovacic seeks to overturn the judgment against him.
Kovacic, who listed his occupation as “restaurant proprietor” on Lagan’s enduring guardianship, has fended off seven previous attempts to bankrupt him, including by the Australian Tax Office, his former lawyers, previous business partners, the Australian go-karting association and other financial institutions.
Land title records show that Kovacic’s home at Matcham, on the Central Coast, has had a slew of caveats on the title, including one registered by Joe Lagan. That caveat, lodged in January 2015, says the property developer had an “equitable interest” in the property “by way of a loan agreement”.
The caveat was withdrawn a year later. Kovacic is understood to be representing Lagan in a court battle involving Lagan’s multimillion-dollar property development in Etna Street, Gosford.
Kovacic has had a colourful business history. “It was a house of cards built on dodgy dollars,” the Herald reported in 2007 of the collapse of a “barter business” called Credex, run by one Valentino Kovacic, who was described as “a 39-year-old Central Coast entrepreneur with a string of failed or deregistered businesses behind him”.
Other former disgruntled business partners have contacted the Herald. One accused Kovacic of “murky money” dealings and claimed he had sold the same apartment to two different purchasers.
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