The court-appointed receiver of Caddick’s assets,Bruce Gleeson,is reluctant to put a price on the upmarket house. For the sake of Caddick’s victims,he is hoping it fetches more than $10 million.
Bruce Gleeson at the Caddick house.Brook Mitchell
The property’s major selling point was “the uninterrupted 180-degree views of the iconic Sydney Harbour and skyline”,said Gleeson.
The five-bedroom,four-bathroom home is the prime asset in the estate of Caddick,49,who disappeared on November 12,2020. The previous day,the Wallangara Road house was raided by officers from the corporate regulator ASIC and the federal police.
Take a look inside the swish Dover Heights home of missing fraudster Melissa Caddick.
Over eight years,Caddick stole more than $23 million,mainly from friends and family who thought she was investing their money in shares.
In February 2021,the remains of her foot were found in her running shoe,which washed up on a remote South Coast beach. An inquest is examining her presumed death.
Gleeson,a principal at insolvency firm Jones Partners,said he was shocked at the state of the house when Caddick’s husband,Anthony Koletti,vacated in May. As well as rotting food in the fridge,Koletti,a hairdresser,DJ and sometimes prawn breeder,left behind unwanted pieces of furniture as well as his fish tanks.
For the past eight weeks,tradesmen have installed new floors,painted and recarpeted to present the house as a prestige property,Gleeson said.
Caddick’s office,which was the boiler room for her Ponzi scheme,is now a bedroom as is her husband’s recording studio,which was across the hallway. Still present,in a store room off her office,is the large safe from which police could be seen removing her jewels and thousands of dollars in foreign currency. Upstairs,in the infamous but now empty walk-in wardrobe,is Caddick’s second safe.
Michael Pallier,the managing director of Sotheby’s,is handling the sale. The house will be open for inspection by appointment only and “expressions of interest” close on October 31.
The con woman acquired the house for $6.2 million in 2014. The deposit and mortgage payments were made using the funds she stole from investors. Instead of paying off the $4 million mortgage,Caddick spent the millions she stole to fund her lavish lifestyle,which included $500,000 a year on luxury holidays,designer clothes and $2 million worth of jewellery.
Koletti’s reluctance to vacate and ongoing legal action means Caddick’s creditors have possibly missed the peak of the real estate market. To date,liquidators have spent $271,450 on legal fees,including $115,000 dealing with the legal claims mounted by Koletti and his parents-in-law,Barb and Ted Grimley.
The battle with the Grimleys is continuing. The couple,both in their 80s,claim they had an agreement to own 30 per cent of the $2.55 million Edgecliff penthouse Caddick purchased in 2016. They also state the agreement with their daughter allowed them to live there rent-free for the rest of their lives.
Gleeson has court approval to use the proceeds from the pending sale of the Wallangra Road property to discharge the Edgecliff mortgage which hasn’t been paid since Caddick’s disappearance and has been attracting default interest.
The swindler’s multimillion-dollar collection of jewellery,designer clothes and artwork is expected to be auctioned later in the year.
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