ResidentialClare BurnettWed 21 Oct 26
Point Piper Home Owner Loses Multimillion-Dollar Valuation Fight
The owner of a Point Piper waterfront property has failed to convince the NSW Land and Environment Court that its land was overvalued, leaving tens of millions of dollars in disputed assessments intact.
The owner of 92 Wolseley Road in one of Sydney’s most affluent suburbs—where the median house price is $22 million—is listed as Point Piper One Pty Ltd.
The company is associated with John Changjin Li, a businessman with considerable interests in gold mining operations in Indonesia, and Zhirou Li, listed in media reports as his daughter.
The company is currently listed as being in external administration—liquidators from DVT Group were appointed in early September and receivers appointed later that same month.
The long-running saga of the waterfront address is a tale of trophy homes, marital collapse and Indonesian gold heist allegations, and highlights the ongoing tension with land valuations and their subsequent tax implications.
Developers, rather than high-net-worth individuals, are more often at the mercy of the NSW Valuer General. Meriton last year lost a case to cut the valuation of its Lane Cove West development, while the owner of The Rocks Sirius apartment development won a case in 2024 over the land tax for the project.
Convoluted history of Point Piper home
The Wolseley Road address is home to Edgewater, a luxury duplex project.
The five-level home was designed in 1984 by film promoter Michael Edgley who sold it to the founders of clothing brand Katies. Those founders, Joe Brender and the late Sam Moss, split the house into apartments.
John Changjin Li, along with estranged wife Maria Meihong Yang, acquired the property in 2020 for $95 million through auction house Sotheby’s.
The address is one of only two waterfront homes on the row with a tennis court, and also boasts a deepwater jetty and views of the Sydney Opera House.
But in 2023, after marital strife and an investigation into Li’s gold mining operations in Borneo over allegations of illegal mining activity, things started to fall apart.
Li’s Indonesian mine, co-owned with ex-wife Athena Changren Cheng, has reportedly been sealed by the Indonesian government since 2021 after a 3000-tonne gold stockpile was confiscated by police, and was then sent illegally to Jakarta. The gold bars are still missing, according to media reports.
Li and Yang had planned to rework the house into a single trophy home, signing a complex deal which has now muddied the ownership waters. They reportedly structured an agreement that would allow three-year terms to acquire the bottom half of the property and five years for the top.
Reports earlier this year suggested that the address had been transferred to Meihong Yang after a NSW Supreme Court case—although she was reportedly unaware that she was listed as an owner of the site in the first place.
However, at the time of the Valuer General’s valuation of the land, it appears the land was still owned by Point Piper One Pty Ltd, which remains listed as the applicant in the LEC case.
Edgewater owner turns to LEC
Point Piper One appealed to the LEC against the land valuation of the 1816sq m site for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The NSW Valuer General had valued the land at $76.8 million in 2022 and 2023, but significantly increased its valuation to $90.2 million in 2024, issuing a land tax assessment notice based on those values.
In the LEC, Point Piper One sought to lower these values to $60.7 million for 2022, $63.3 million for 2023 and $65.9 million for 2024. The State Revenue Office disagreed, only allowing the the 2024 valuation to be reduced to $80 million.
The company then launched court proceedings in the NSW Land and Environment Court.
The hearing was told about comparable sales in the area, including the $27-million sale of the 739.8sq m site at 42 Wolseley Road in 2022, a 1308sq m site at 120-122 Wolseley Road which sold in 2024 for $81.5 million, and the 2023 sale of the 383.2sq m site at 49 Wunulla Road at Point Piper for $68 million.
The valuer for Point Piper One used a rate per square metre of “net land area” and preferred vacant or notionally vacant land sales, while excluding the Maritime Lease Area.
But the commissioner found some of these comparisons “unconvincing” and found flaws in the valuation methods and evidence.
The commissioner applied the court’s own adjusted analysis, which suggested higher values than those issued, but the Valuer General did not ask for an increase to the evaluations.
As a result, the xommissioner confirmed the Valuer General’s land values and determined that the land should be worth $76.8 million for 2022 and 2023, and $80 million for 2024.
The commissioner ruled that the applicant did not prove that the values were too high, and dismissed all three appeals, one for each year.
