A very South Yarra swan dive: Chrissie Swan returned to home to find it gutted
The extent of a property nightmare endured by high profile radio host Chrissie Swan has come to light after a cryptocurrency dealer who bought her South Yarra home gutted the property, shortly before defaulting on the sale.
The Network Ten identity and her husband Chris Saville sold their Surrey Road home in December 2017 for $5.44 million to cryptocurrency trader Stefan Papas.
Mr Papas, who at one point counted AFL great Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson as a client, snapped up the home as Bitcoin peaked at $25,000 a piece.
He also negotiated a delayed settlement that allowed him to rent the home before eventually exchanging contracts.
In the months before settlement, Mr Papas embarked on an ambitious renovation of the home, ripping out what had been a bespoke kitchen, and gutting the whole ground floor of the elegant single-storey home.
But a spectacular crash in Bitcoin left Mr Papas unable to continue the renovations, and unable to pay up to buy the property.
By September 2018, Swan and her husband were forced to rescind the sales contract. By that point, the couple had already bought and moved into an 1880s Victorian cottage in Hawthorn East.
Images and videos of the home obtained by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald reveal the state of the home when the renovations came to a halt, with exposed foundations, no floors or doors, and only wooden beams and rafters where the walls once were.
Swan was tight-lipped on the debacle on Monday, telling The Age and the Herald that confidentiality provisions meant she could not comment on the sale, nor could she comment on the state she found the home in when the sale didn’t go through.
However, she described the situation as "very touchy, for many people" involved.
"I don’t own it, and I haven’t owned it for a year," she said. "We’re well clear of it now."
Property sources familiar with the sale have indicated that Mr Papas was forced to restore the home to the original condition ahead of the second sale, and was also required to make up the difference between the two transactions.
The home sold again in October 2018 for $4.05 million to Melanie Stephenson.
Mr Papas is defending a claim by property developer Savvas "Sam" Alexiadis that he owed more than $2.7 million from a failed Bitcoin investment plan. The case continues.