Tax debt leads to voluntary administration and staff cut at property firm

The director of a Newcastle property management company is confident the business can overcome its tax debt and emerge from voluntary administration within weeks.

The Mayfield-based Maison Property Management Group has appointed Jamieson Louttit from Sydney's JLA Insolvency & Advisory as its administrator after it received a winding-up notice from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in May.

The first meeting between JLA Insolvency & Advisory and the ATO will be held in Sydney on Wednesday.

Maison Property launched in 2021 and manages commercial and residential properties, including student accommodation. It also offers buyer's agent services.

Maison director and co-owner Natalie Woo told the Newcastle Herald on Monday that the business was continuing to trade and she hoped the process would be rectified quickly.

"We're working through it at the moment," Ms Woo said. "We're hopefully going to be out of it and be full trading within a couple of weeks. It's very basic.

"I've never been through this process before, but I've got some really good people supporting me in the back end and hope to get through it in a couple of weeks."

Last week Ms Woo was forced to retrench four staff members from Maison, including her brother Matt Galvin, whose Newcastle building company Sehez Group collapsed in 2020, owing more than $2.5 million to 307 creditors.

Mr Galvin had worked at Maison Property for the past four years, mostly furnishing properties.

Ms Woo said Mr Galvin had nothing to do with Maison Property's tax debt.

"We had to prove that our payroll was down," Ms Woo said. "We've done everything we can with the insolvency guys that we have engaged to get us out of this and prove our cash flow to keep trading.

"We have a proposal to pay off the debt and I'm trying to do everything I absolutely can and I have very good hope that we can get through it."

Mr Galvin said he hoped to return to Maison Property once the business came out of voluntary administration.

"I'd be very surprised if they don't trade through it," Mr Galvin said.

"Take the ATO out of it; the business has always been good and there's a plan there to continue."

JLA Insolvency & Advisory was approached for comment.

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