Charlie Caltabiano after his hearing in the Brisbane Supreme Court.
A FORMER rich lister who failed to settle a $16.85m contract on a Gold Coast high-rise penthouse has been ordered to pay the developer more than $15.6m — but doesn’t get to keep the unit.
Industrial transport entrepreneur Charlie Caltabiano was sued by receivers for Juniper Property Holdings, developer of the Surfers Paradise landmark Soul, which went into receivership with debts to creditors of almost $700 million, in late 2012.
In a Supreme Court judgment released yesterday, Judge David Jackson ordered Mr Caltabiano to pay $14.1m in damages, $1.5m in interest and legal costs which were yet to be determined over the failed Soul deal.
However, they will have to get in line, with seven of his former companies now in liquidation with pages of creditors claiming they are owed more than $100m.
The Surfers Esplanade penthouse was bought for just $7m last year by Hong Kong businessman Tony Fung, of Aquis.
The receivers claimed Mr Caltabiano, who paid a $1.7 million deposit on the luxury four-level apartment, breached the contract when he failed to settle on it three times over two years.
Residential tower Soul.Source:News Limited
The judge rejected Mr Caltabiano’s claims he reneged on the deal to buy the penthouse because the sellers misled him over its value.
Mr Caltabiano claimed the seller told him the Jade penthouse had sold for $20m and that the Q1 penthouse sold for $7.8m but had half the floor size of the Soul penthouse — both claims that were untrue.
The Soul building in Surfers Paradise towers over the Zenith building next door on The Esplanade, Surfers Paradise. Photo: Kit WiseSource:News Corp Australia
He said the seller had made the claims to prove the Soul penthouse was worth $16.85m and that he had taken them at their word and not done any other research about the apartment’s value — an assertion the judge described as “incredible”.
“It is commercially illogical and inherently improbably that in deciding upon a $16.85m purchase the defendant would not have obtained that advice,” the judgement read.
View from the Soul penthouse on the Gold Coast.Source:Supplied
Mr Caltabiano founded his key company, Force Corp, renting out equipment like cherry pickers and hydraulic lifts in 1994 and by 2007 it was making $60m a year.
However it ran into trouble and was bought out by Coates Hire last year after it was placed under administration.
Mr Caltabiano sold his seven-bedroom hilltop mansion in Brisbane’s Clear Mountain for $2.9m in 2010 and ASIC now lists his address as a relatively humble suburban house in Camp Hill, where the landline went unanswered when called by the Bulletin yesterday.
Internal image of the Soul Penthouse, Surfers Paradise/Source:Supplied
The Gold Coast Bulletin also attempted to contact Mr Caltabiano through his Southport solicitors, Johnson Solicitors and Attorneys, who said he did not want to comment on the case or what he would do next.
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