Clive’s garden of woe
CLIVE Palmer is under attack again, this time in a legal row that has pitted rich residents of the Gold Coast’s ritziest suburb against one of the nation’s wealthiest men.
Well-heeled Sovereign Islands residents have begun legal action – through two nonprofit companies they set up to look after security and gardening duties in the exclusive estate – to make Mr Palmer pay $25,000 for what they allege is breach of an agreement.
An application lodged with the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal claims documents have not been able to be served on Mr Palmer because he is surrounded by bodyguards and because his whereabouts have been unknown.
Documents also allege Mr Palmer has not paid levies covering security and gardening totalling $6413 since July 2015, amounting to what they claim has been just $5 a day.
The mining magnate and former MP, who has been fighting separate, protracted legal proceedings over the collapse of Queensland Nickel in north Queensland, is being taken before QCAT in Southport by The Sovereign Islands Gateway Company Limited and The Sovereign Islands Company Limited in their pursuit of $25,000 to cover a penalty for breach of agreement.
The applicants allege the breach occurred when Mr Palmer did not provide a deed of transfer when ownership of a $1.3 million property in King Charles Drive passed from him to his son, Michael, in April 2013.
In the documents, Sovereign Island Gateway Company Limited secretary and director Roslyn McKiernan said Mr Palmer’s whereabouts were “entirely unknown due to current court cases”.
Property searches reveal Mr Palmer’s family owns eight houses in Sovereign Islands. Four are in the name of his wife, Anna Alezandrova Palmer; three are listed in his son Michael’s name and one in his daughter’s name, Emily Susan Moraig Palmer.
Levies covering aroundthe-clock security at Sovereign Islands and gardening amount to about $2000 a year for each property owner.
Because The Sovereign Islands leases parks from the Gold Coast City Council, it covers its own maintenance through the non-profit companies set up for that purpose.
Water rates from the Gold Coast City Council are said to exceed $5000 per park inside the community.
The documents claim the maintenance fee for all landscaping in the suburb is “more than $210,000 per annum”. This includes repairs and maintenance of fences and waterfront walls “which people play on and break”, along with replanting shrubs and trees that need replacing.