Australia orders fast sale of $30mn mansion bought "illegally" by China's Golden Fast Foods

SYDNEY: Australia on Tuesday announced it was forcing the Chinese owner of an A$39 million ($30.50 million) Sydney mansion to sell up within 90 days, the first such crackdown on foreign investment in residential real estate since 2006.

"Villa del Mare" was bought "illegally" in November by Golden Fast Foods Pty, owned by Hong Kong-listed Evergrande Real Estate Group through a string of shell companies in Australia, Hong Kong and British Virgin Islands, Treasurer Joe Hockey said in a statement.

Evergrande, the fourth-biggest property developer in China by sales, is owned by Hui Ka Yan, China's 15th richest man with a net wealth of around $6.4 billion, according to Forbes.

The company was not immediately available for comment.

Foreigners in Australia are restricted to buying new properties only, and the vast Villa del Mare is not new. A parliamentary committee inquiry last year found widespread abuse of the system in a country which is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world "Under Australia's foreign investment policy, foreign investment should increase Australia's housing stock. Non-resident foreign nationals cannot buy established dwellings as homes or investments," Hockey's statement said.

Last month, Australia announced plans to charge foreign nationals buying residential property fees and fine those who break foreign investment laws in an attempt to cool one of the world's hottest property markets.

Australia's foreign investment review board says China, which is trying to crack down on capital flight, was the No.1 source of foreign capital investment in real estate in 2013, approving nearly A$6 billion ($5.58 billion) of investment, up 41 percent from a year earlier.