Source : the age
With personal debts of more than $2.8 billion, controversial property developer Sam Fayad has attained the unfortunate record of what is believed to be the largest bankruptcy in Australian history.
Much of the debt is due to Fayad giving personal guarantees on business loans for his failed development empire. On New Year’s Eve in 2020, the Dyldam group, with dozens of associated companies, went bust owing millions of dollars to the Australian Taxation Office. Subcontractors went unpaid, and buildings were riddled with defects.
Sam Fayad with his wife, Maria, who is a sister of Dyldam founder Joe Khattar. Credit: Facebook
Among Fayad’s debts is $46.5 million owed to the ATO. His wife, Maria, owes the ATO $24.4 million, and she has also failed to pay her sister-in-law, Carol Khattar, a judgment debt of $21.5 million.
Also facing bankruptcy are the Fayads’ two sons, Remon and Fayad-Lee, who have combined tax debts worth more than $20 million.
But bankruptcy appears to be no impediment to the Fayad family. Last July, Sam and Maria Fayad flew first class to Italy to attend Remon’s extravagant wedding. The four-day-long festivities were estimated to cost more than $3 million.
The Fayad wedding in Florence.Credit:
A Herald investigation can reveal that Fayad, 65, appears to have another plan on the boil to avoid paying creditors, with the supposed sale of their western Sydney mansion.
The six-car garage mansion
“Commanding uninterrupted panoramas of the Parramatta skyline, this grand seven-bedroom masterpiece sets a new standard for luxury living,” reads the advertising campaign for Sam and Maria’s property in Constitution Hill.
In their six-car garage are three Ferraris, an Aston Martin and another car.
Sam and Maria Fayad’s seven-bedroom house in Constitution Hill.Credit:
Forcing the sale of the property is I Properties, which holds a mortgage over the house. According to Fayad’s 142-page statement of affairs filed for his bankruptcy, I Properties has loaned him more than $21 million.
However, Rami Ayoub, sole director and shareholder of I Properties, has been alleged in court to be a front for the Fayads. Corporate documents list the company’s registered office as that of Sam Fayad’s longtime tax lawyers, Pope and Spinks.
How Ayoub’s company came to lend that amount of money to Sam and Maria Fayad remains a mystery, as there have been numerous caveats lodged on Ayoub’s own properties by State Revenue NSW for unpaid taxes.
Ayoub, who has twice staved off bankruptcy, runs a business associated with recycled tyres. In 2019, he offered a property owned by his company, Sustainable Rubber Technologies, as security for $1 million to obtain bail for his relative Torek Ayoub, who was facing charges of being an accessory after the fact to the killing of 15-year-old Brayden Dillon. Torek, 29, was gunned down in Parramatta last August.
Rami Ayoub, 58, as the vendor of the Fayads’ Constitution Hill mansion, has determined it will be sold by “expressions of interest”. Prospective buyers have until 5pm on Monday to submit offers.
Last month, Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart granted a freezing order preventing nine defendants – including Sam Fayad, his two sons, several related companies and Ayoub’s company, I Properties – from disposing of certain assets as the liquidator of another collapsed Fayad company, Special Gold, chases them for $33 million.
The Constitution Hill property, however, was not listed as one of the assets.
The judge noted there was a claim against I Properties for payment of $740,000 and that “the director of that company, Rami Ayoub, appears to act on behalf of or on the instructions of the Fayad family”.
The ‘Special Gold’ dispute
The Special Gold proceedings, which are being funded by the ATO, relate to the $74 million sale of a building owned by the company in Parramatta.
In late 2020, Fayad’s now estranged business partner and brother-in-law Joe Khattar, also now bankrupt, took legal action over the proposed sale of the Argyle Street property. The court heard that without her knowledge, Khattar’s wife Chahida had been removed as a director of Special Gold and replaced by her brother Sam Fayad.
Khattar was also furious that Special Gold had agreed with the ATO to use the sale of Argyle Street to pay off Fayad’s various tax debts and the debts of several of their associated companies.
On December 17, 2020, Supreme Court Justice Ashley Black ordered that the ATO should receive the $33 million it was owed in taxes and penalties, but the rest of the profits from the sale should be frozen.
But before the week was out, Sam Fayad is alleged to have breached those orders. The sale of the Parramatta property was finalised on December 22, 2020. Not only was no tax paid, but millions of dollars allegedly flowed into various entities associated with Fayad and his sons.
More than $4.5 million of the proceeds went into companies associated with Rami Ayoub. According to land title documents, it appears some of the Argyle Street proceeds were used by I Properties to buy a property in Carlingford from another of the Fayads’ failed companies.
A decade ago, a Herald investigation revealed that Fayad had an aversion to paying tax. Dozens of his special-purpose companies would complete a development, having paid his company Dyldam handsomely for construction services, several units would be transferred to family and friends, and then the company would collapse owing the ATO millions of dollars.
Sam Fayad celebrates in Tuscany.Credit:
Frustrated liquidators have expressed their fury at the lack of action by corporate regulators. Prominent liquidator Stephen Hathway, who has previously described Dyldam’s directors as “masterminds of manipulation”, has complained that the only penalty Fayad has received is a $6000 fine for failing to provide books and records to another liquidator.
Fayad and Ayoub were contacted for comment.
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