A company behind the Neufort high-rise development in Wickham has gone into receivership, leaving more than 100 apartment buyers in limbo waiting to see if the project proceeds.
Business advisory firm McGrathNicol has been appointed receiver for a company called 22 Park Avenue Pty Ltd which owns the development site in Railway Lane but has defaulted on a loan with Pindari Capital.
McGrathNicol will put the land, with development approval in place, up for sale in the next fortnight.
Whoever takes over the site will decide whether to assume the existing buyers' contracts.
The Newcastle Herald has been told the impending sale is the latest chapter in a dispute between the men behind the development, Eddie Tran and Peter Blake.
The Herald understands Mr Tran wanted to buy Mr Blake out of the 190-apartment project but the two could not agree.
The two Sydney men are the sole directors of 22 Park Avenue.
Mr Blake said he did not want to comment. The Herald approached Mr Tran for comment.
Work has not started on the site. The Neufort showroom in Hunter Street had an eviction notice on it in January and had been cleared out.
PRD partner Ryan Houston, whose real estate company was marketing and selling the apartments, said 126 buyers had signed off-the-plan contracts and paid deposits.
"It's very disappointing to be caught in the middle of this. I've been trying to contact the developers, but I've had no news on where it's up to," Mr Houston told the Newcastle Herald.
"We stopped selling the apartments at the start of this year until we had a clear direction."
Mr Houston said the project had sold well and hit finance targets which usually triggered the start of construction.
The Herald understands some buyers' off-the-plan contracts have sunset clauses which expire this year while others extend to 2025.
Newcastle public relations specialist Jaimie Abbott used her life savings for a deposit on an investment property in Neufort last year.
She said she was "still really hopeful" the project would go ahead and her contract would be honoured.
"I don't care if I have to wait a few more years, because obviously prices have gone up since then," Ms Abbott said.
The Blake Organisation's Neufort website says "expected completion in late 2022".
Blake won approval in 2017 for a nine-storey building with 150 units behind the Lass O'Gowrie Hotel.
City of Newcastle entered into a planning agreement with the developer last year to increase the building's height 19 metres beyond the land's 24-metre height limit in return for almost a million dollars for nearby public domain works.
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