Cate Blanchett's $20 million buyer opts out of the Hunters Hill purchase
The 2015 sale of the Hunters Hill trophy home of Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton has collapsed.
The buyer, understood to live in Point Piper, claims problems getting their funds out of China, highlighting an emerging issue for Australian prestige property owners.
The historic residence, Bulwarra sold for $19.8 million last August on delayed settlement terms, just three weeks after hitting the market.
The celebrity couple, wanting to avoid a circus agreed to further time extensions, having since bought in the United Kingdom.
Their redundant 3642-square-metre North Parade estate has been relisted by Ken Jacobs of Christie’s International who will be seeking $20 million, no doubt calling those who missed out.
After returning to Sydney to perform in the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Hedda Gabler, Blanchett, often with her writer husband, Andrew Upton, began looking for their new Sydney house in 2004. After being bombarded with inquiries from pesky estate agents, the couple took the decision to sign up buyer's agency adviser, Deborah West.
Blanchett and Upton purchased the property on nine month delayed settlement terms for $10 million in 2005 from veteran merchant banker Jim Dominguez and his wife Suzanne, and subsequently spent more than $8 million on a three-year redesign by architects Nadine Alwill and Stephen Lesiuk .
The sales' contract collapse matter could be headed for the courts depending on the resale price now secured. Deborah West got huge billing as the agent to the stars after last August's sale.
“High profile clients come to us to escape the circus that is the Sydney property market," she then advised.
"They want confidentiality, discretion and privacy,” said West.
A home sales contract to an offshore Chinese buyer is no guarantee of yielding a settlement, as Property Observer has previously written when the on-off issue of getting funds out of China arose.
The size of the Cate Blanchett deposit is not known.
The Oscar winner and her husband bought a high-rise bolthole in The Astor on Macquarie Street as their intended Sydney base.
The price is undisclosed however Yellow Brick Road and Celebrity Apprentice boss Mark Bouris wanted $8 million for the apartment.
