Wednesday 10 March 2021

"My kids' future is gone."

From The Daily Mail:

A property which was listed for $12million had its value drop to just one dollar due to proposed land zonings.

Theo Koutsomihalis' home's value plummeted after the NSW government rezoned land surrounding the airport at Badgerys Creek - which is due to open in 2026. Mr Koutsomihalis' four hectare Bringelly property went from rural land to 100 per cent environmental land designated as a green space...

He said planning firm Urbis, which had initially valued his then-enterprise land at $11million, informed him the property would now be 'unsellable'.

"I'm stuck now with a property worth $1 for the next 20 or 30 years, if it ever sells," Mr Koutsomihalis told The Daily Telegraph, "The other day I literally had to pull the car over and have a panic attack for 45 minutes. My kids' future is gone."


Think of those poor children who will have to struggle through life without a share of a $12 million inheritance! The fact he bought up four acres and wanted to market it as "enterprise land" suggest that it was a speculative purchase (the article doesn't mention what he originally paid for it). You win some, you lose some.
----------------------------------
Where this chapped lucked out, somebody else was cashing in. Right at the end of the article:

Meanwhile, taxpayers won't know any time soon what changes are needed in the wake of revelations the federal government spent 10 times the market value on a land deal for a new airport.

The government paid almost $30million for a 12-hectare plot for the Western Sydney Airport in 2018. The inflated figure came to light through a scathing auditor-general's report which found the land was worth only $3million and the federal infrastructure department fell short of ethical standards.

The land is not needed until 2050 when the airport's second runway is to be built. Australian Federal Police are investigating the deal over possible fraud.

5 comments:

Bayard said...

Well, it's the Wail, isn't it? I can practically guarantee that the land is still worth more or less what he paid for it, plus a bit of inflation and that the $12M never existed, except in the imagination of Urbis.

Mark Wadsworth said...

B, I strongly suspect so too.

tolkein said...

It was fraud. The land for the airport.

Mark Wadsworth said...

T, from the scant facts provided, clearly it was. Question is, will anybody go to prison?

Bayard said...

Depends on who was responsible and who their friends are.