Ugly family feud over Sydney real estate business
Paula-Marie Penya claimed her father Paul promised she would end up a 'rich little girl' if she worked at Matra Real Estate without pay, and was promised both the business and their family home in Eastlakes once he retired.
The court heard how Matra Real Estate in Matraville had about 30 properties on the rent roll.
However, upon his retirement in 2018, Mr Penya ended up selling the business to Century 21 Real Estate and giving Paula-Marie $5000 from the sale.
The court action began after Mr Penya decided in 2022 that he needed more funds for his retirement and wanted to sell the Eastlakes home, which he owns with his ex-wife and Paula-Marie's mother, Theresa.
Paula-Marie lives in the home with her partner and their two young sons, alongside Theresa.
Mr Penya said he would not move to sell the house if Paula-Marie could buy him out, however, was unable to take out a loan as she was not working.
'I always relied on the promises from Dad and Mum that the business and house were going to be mine,' the court heard.
'If this was not stated to me I would have worked somewhere else to receive a wage.'
Paula-Marie claimed she worked at the business unpaid for more than 20 years and that her father told her: 'Always follow my instructions and you'll be a rich little girl.'
'Paula-Marie sought legal advice in late April 2023 after she told Paul that she could not pay him, and he told her that if she wanted the Eastlakes property she would have to sue him and Therese,' the court decision stated.
Takeover of the business
Paula-Marie told the court that she had told her father in 2018 that she would take over the business in 'a couple of years' when her two sons were in school.
'All I needed was another year or so then I would have been child-free during business hours and told Dad this over and over during 2018,' she told the court.
Mr Penya denied this and said he had 'repeatedly asked Paula-Marie to take over the business' and that she had 'consistently declined' to do so.
The court heard how Theresa wanted Paula-Marie to have the home and sent Paul a text message in April 2023, accusing him of 'hurting Paula and your grandsons for the rest of their lives'.
'Absolutely everybody is shocked at what you're doing to Paula & me! You have a few days to do the right thing,' she wrote.
'You want to leave Paula & her family & me in the street. Open your heart & mind to what God would want you to do.'
On Wednesday, Justice Kate Williams dismissed Paula-Marie's estoppel claim, finding she had failed to establish that a 'clear and unequivocal promise' was made that she would be given the property and business after her father's retirement.
Justice Williams said the evidence pointed towards Paula-Marie being promised the business and home 'by way of inheritance' after her parents' deaths.
'[The evidence] provides no support for Paula-Marie's claim to have been promised that she would be given the business or the Eastlakes property during Paul's and Therese's lifetime in return for her working in the business without a wage,' Justice Williams said in her decision.
Justice Williams also pointed out that Paula-Marie and her partner were able to buy multiple investment properties over the last two decades because they were living 'rent-free' at the Eastlakes home.
Mr Penya's application to sell the house was granted, meaning the family will now be forced to move out of the Eastlakes home.
Mr Penya changes his original will
The court heard how, due to the proceedings, Mr Penya had revoked his will giving everything to his daughter, and is now instead leaving his estate to his long-term partner Irene.
'I just got sick of it. It was all take, take, take,' Mr Penya told the court.
'When they need money, when I had money they could get it, but when I was out, no money, now I was the bad one. I made them millionaires; they were useless.'
Justice Williams dismissed the estoppel claim and granted Mr Penya's application for the home to be sold.
Paula-Marie's family and Therese were ordered to vacate the home no later than seven days before the sale date.
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Will Trump set Ghislaine Maxwell free?
Sam Hawley: Donald Trump has spent another week fielding questions over the release of the so-called Epstein files. The saga even followed him to Scotland. So what's he up to now to try and get rid of the problem? Well, in part, he sent his Deputy Attorney General to interview Epstein's co-conspirator, Delaine Maxwell, who's in prison for sex trafficking. Today, Jill Wine-Banks, who was one of the prosecutors during the Watergate scandal, on whether Trump could pardon Maxwell and whether that would help him. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Jill, this Epstein issue, it won't go away for Donald Trump. He was even facing questioning about this during his trip to Scotland. Donald Trump, US President: You're making a very big thing over something that's not a big thing. You should be talking about, if you're going to talk about that, talk about Clinton. Talk about the former president of Harvard. Don't talk about Trump. Sam Hawley: It's become rather a bother, hasn't it? Jill Wine-Banks: It is something that is a self-inflicted problem because it was Donald Trump who yelled, conspiracy, conspiracy, you must release all this. And he promised he would. And now he's not. We know that his attorney general told him that he is in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and that would seem very suspicious as to why he is now not releasing it and looking for ways around it. Sam Hawley: Well, Jill, in some of his latest comments, Donald Trump says he fell out with Jeffrey Epstein because he stole young women from his Mar-a-Lago club, including Australian Virginia Jeffrey, who died this year. Donald Trump, US President: I think so. I think that was one of the people. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. Sam Hawley: And he says he never went to Epstein's private island in the Caribbean. Donald Trump, US President: I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. And one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn't want to go to his island. Sam Hawley: But look, what I really want to do with you is to dig a bit deeper into the role of it?in all of this, because she has, of course, been re-interviewed by the deputy attorney general, presumably at Trump's orders. Just remind me, first of all, who she is and why she's serving a 20-year jail sentence in America. Jill Wine-Banks: Absolutely. So Ghislaine Maxwell is an accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein. She is not charged with his crimes. She is charged with basically procuring young girls, grooming them, and participating in sexual abuse of them. So it's not just that she was what we would call in America his pimp, where she went to colleges and other places to find young girls who would come to his Palm Beach estate. And then she groomed them as to how to handle the sexual acts and the massages, as they were called. She was convicted in 2021, sentenced in 2022, and is currently imprisoned. She is appealing. She has asked the Supreme Court to review her conviction. They are on their summer recess, but are expected to decide whether they will take the case this fall when they come back into session. Sam Hawley: All right. So between 1994 and 2004, according to federal prosecutors, Maxwell helped Epstein groom and traffic girls as young as 14. Yes. She has maintained her innocence, of course, hence the appeal. Just a reminder, she's the only one serving time in relation to these awful offenses against young girls because Jeffrey Epstein died in jail in 2019. Jill Wine-Banks: Correct. He was serving time in jail and died. The question was whether he committed suicide or was murdered, and that remains an open question. There can be no further criminal prosecutions because there's no trafficking subsequent to his death. And he died in 2019, and we have a statute of limitations in America that is five years, and it's six years since he died. Sam Hawley: All right. So, Jill, Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence in a Florida prison, but in the past week, the Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, has gone knocking on her prison cell door. Just tell me about that. What's happened? Jill Wine-Banks: Yes. Well, first, let me say how utterly remarkable it is that the Deputy Attorney General would interview a witness. Let me say how remarkable it is that the Deputy Attorney General would be the former private attorney of Donald Trump. Once you are someone's private attorney, you have a duty of loyalty and secrecy to that client forever. And so he cannot be acting on behalf of the American people when he already has a commitment to Donald Trump. That would be a conflict of interest. The other reason it's unusual is that he knows nothing about the prosecution. He has no experience in this case. The people who tried the Epstein and Maxwell cases are people who would be very appropriate to interview her, not someone with no experience. And Maxwell, we should be also adding, she's not a credible person that a jury would be likely to rely on. And we do not in America allow the revelation of secret grand jury testimony or anything else that would accuse someone of a crime unless you're charging them with a crime. And nothing, she says, is going to lead to a criminal prosecution. We don't release information because it would satisfy public interest or purient interest of the public. It has to be in connection with a judicial proceeding. And that's another reason why it would be wrong. Sam Hawley: All right, well, Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Marcus, said that she answered every single question she was asked. David Markus, Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney: There were a lot of questions and we went all day and she answered every one of them. She never just said, I'm not going to answer, never declined. You know, this is the first time the government has asked questions. So we were thankful that. Sam Hawley: She was offered limited immunity for participating in this interview. Just explain what that is. Jill Wine-Banks: Limited immunity is basically also called use immunity. It means that anything that she says cannot be used against her and that in any future prosecution, anything that is introduced in evidence against her would have to be shown to not be the result of something she said. That's considered fruit of the poison tree. So it gives her some protection and it is a completely legitimate thing to do. So that is not among the suspicious or wrong things that the Department of Justice is doing. The interview is the wrong thing. And although they are now saying that there are transcripts of it, I want to know who the person taking the notes was. And I want to know whether 100% of from hello until walking out on the second day, how much was maybe done what we call in camera, in secret, not as part of the recorded testimony. Because there is my suspicion shared by many that part of Todd Blanche's purpose in talking to her was to say, well, the president would certainly look favorably on your request for a pardon if you could say that he had nothing to do with this. And maybe in a more subtle way than I'm phrasing it, shape her testimony so that it was helpful to Donald Trump and hurtful to Democrats who might be on the list of people who she has evidence against. We've obviously heard the name Bill Clinton, former president Bill Clinton, as someone who might be involved in this. There's no evidence that there is. And being on the manifest for planes does not mean you committed a crime. It means you took a plane somewhere that Jeffrey Epstein flew you. It doesn't mean you engaged in trafficking or in illegal sex with a minor. Sam Hawley: President Trump was asked whether he would pardon Maxwell. And he really hasn't closed the door on that. Donald Trump, US President: Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Ghislaine Maxwell? It's something I haven't thought about. I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about. Sam Hawley: But would anyone believe, the public believe what she had to say, whatever that might be? Jill Wine-Banks: I think they would not believe what she had to say. I think they would believe that any pardon was to protect himself. And he said about her, I wish her well. He has not said anything of sympathy toward any of the victims. He should be concerned about the young girls, as you said, starting at the age of 14. 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A move that would be simply devastating for Epstein's victims and hers. Jill Wine-Banks: I don't think we can rule it out because I don't think he has empathy for any of the victims. I think he could commute her sentence to time served and let her out of jail without pardoning her for these horrendous crimes. I think, I don't know, I may be Pollyanna, but I still think that there has to be someone advising him who says you cannot pardon these kinds of crimes for which there was more than ample evidence. And yet he thinks he can get away with anything. He, of course, can pardon her and there's no consequences. That's totally up to his discretion. Sam Hawley: Jill Wine-Banks was one of the prosecutors during the Watergate scandal. She's the author of The Watergate Girl and the host of the podcast, #Sisters In Law. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday. Thanks for listening.
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The Australian
2 hours ago
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