This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE building arm of Jean Nassif’s Toplace Group fell into administration yesterday, as the Sydney developer remains overseas and wanted for fraud.
Toplace has been placed under the control of administrators Suelen McCallum and Antony Resnick of DVT Group. It remains undetermined how much money is owed to creditors. About 40 employees could be affected.
According to its website, the company has “delivered approximately 30,000 residential homes, shopping centres and commercial suites” in Sydney since being founded by Nassif in 1992. It currently has multiple projects in different stages of construction.
It comes just days after Nassif and Toplace had the suspension of their licences reinstated by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
An arrest warrant issued for last month for Nassif over an alleged large-scale fraud relating to pre-sale documents for a $150 million loan from Westpac for his company’s 900-unit Skyview Apartments project in Castle Hill. He has been overseas since December and was recently believed to be travelling between Lebanon and south east Asia.
Nassif’s daughter, Sydney lawyer Ashlyn Nassif, has been charged for allegedly falsifying a $10.5 million pre-condition to secure the Westpac loan. She is also being investigated by the same strike force as her father, and is not allowed to contact him as part of her bail conditions.
Jean Nassif is the director of two companies linked to the Castle Hill construction site in Sydney’s north west, 51 OCHR and JKN Finance, which fell into receivership in March. Two of the project’s five buildings have been completed. Late last year, it had its building licence permanently revoked and Nassif was banned from holding a building licence for 10 years after the NSW Department of Fair Trading uncovered over 40 alleged defects in residential developments, including Skyview.
In the middle of 2021, Toplace had agreed to be liable for any current and future defects across the Skyview development for 20 years in exchange for the NSW building commissioner lifting a prohibition order following audits on the development by NSW Fair Trading.
Nassif and Toplace recently became the focus of a NSW parliamentary committee after Liberal MP Ray Williams made a speech in parliament last year in which he alleged members of the party were “paid significant funds” to install new councillors within Hills Shire to support Toplace’s development applications.
Nassif is reportedly travelling between Lebanon, Singapore and the Philippines, according to Nine media, which also reported that Nassif does not want to be arrested at an airport and would rather “front up to authorities on his own terms”. He has been borrowing millions of dollars in the meantime, using properties including a waterfront home in Chiswick that he bought in 2015 for $4.9 million as security.
In March, Nassif tipped a 1.64-hectare industrial parcel near Sydney Airport at 146 and 154 O’Riordan Street to the market with expectations of more than $100 million. He bought the latter site, at 1.4 hectares, for $32 million from Dexus in 2015, and had obtained a permit for 96 hotel rooms and 444 serviced apartments for the property.
In 2021, Nassif sold a Parramatta site to developer Tim Gurner and real estate financier Qualitas’s built-to-rent platform for around $70 million, and also sold a 7.65-hectare western Sydney logistics site to Goodman Group for $140 million, netting a $75 million profi
Nassif became a viral social media sensation in 2019 when he uploaded a video of him presenting his wife with a yellow Lamborghini on Valentine’s Day, infamously saying, “Congratulations, Mrs Nassif. You like?”. The phrase was mocked and imitated by thousands of people.
