Aussie neighbour disagreements: How they were settled

Jennifer Hawkins and Guy Sebastian have had their fair share of neighbourly unrest.

Neighbourhood disputes are often the most traded kinds of gossip, because what is closest to home is what you know best and what can affect you most.

It doesn’t matter who you are, or how much money you have, you can never totally guard yourself against drama in the local area.

These neighbourhood disputes – many involving celebrities – made headlines for all the wrong reasons, pushing the whispers and gossip far beyond the borders of local streets.

LITTLE APPRECIATON FOR ‘FORT GUY’

Guy Sebastian’s massive Maroubra mansion on Sydney’s eastern beaches – nicknamed ‘Fort Guy’ by locals – has been at the centre of a battle with his neighbour in the area for several years.

Various claims have allegedly passed between singer Sebastian and his immediate neighbour Phillip Hanslow since 2017, of which some have ended up in court.

Guy Sebastian’s home dwarfs that of his neighbours. Pics by Julian Andrews.

Sebastian spent $3.3m on the property in 2013 and set about making a huge home. Building costs are said to be around $7m.

His home sits on 1400 sqm, while Hanslow has a 325sqm block.

“We didn’t grow up in houses like this,” Sebastian has said of the home.

“Every day, we [he and wife Jules] look at each other and say, ‘Why is this us?’

Phillip Hanslow with his partner Carol. Phillip has had a long running neighbour dispute with Guy Sebastian in Maroubra. Picture: John Grainger

“But there is beauty in feeling like an alien in your own space. You never fail to appreciate it.”

It seems his neighbour, doesn’t share the same appreciation.

“He’s [Sebastian] paranoid about security and has a large security camera outside so anywhere I go outside on the property, he can see,” Mr Hanslow has claimed.

“We’re going to have to sell. We’re too old for this.”

Guy Sebastian is seen leaving his home in Maroubra Sydney. Picture NCA Newswire/ Gaye Gerard

Sebastian said of the dispute, which had been going for more than five years, he wished he had never fallen out with his neighbour.

“It is something that is out of my hands,” Sebastian told The Daily Telegraph. “I have had to put up with a lot of things that have been said … but I can’t keep fighting all of that anymore.”

THE ‘EVIL NUN’

A North Queensland woman hung a bucket of rotting fish near her neighbours’ kitchen window in actions “unlike anything” seen by a seasoned magistrate, Cairns Magistrates Court heard.

The Cairns Post reported in August last year, Elizabeth Anne Sheean, 66, pleaded guilty to the stalking and common assault of her two neighbours over 14 months from August, 2021 to October, 2022.

The dispute stemmed from her claims of excessive noise and problems with their pet cat.

After the rotting fish incident, Sheean placed an image of an “evil nun” from the movie The Conjuring on a window facing the couple’s house — for over a year until one week before her first court appearance.

Elizabeth Anne Sheean leaving court after she was sentenced for stalking and common assault.

“She knew my wife was religious and would be very upset by this. She had been calling us evil for quite some time,” the neighbour said.

The court heard she once hit a phone out of the hand of one of the neighbours and told them she wished they would die of cancer.

Magistrate Kevin Priestly said he found Sheean’s conduct “self-righteous” and “lacking insight”.

He sentenced her to three years’ probation and ordered she have no contact with the neighbours.

NOISY TRADIE WAR

The Gold Coast’s Andrew Skyrme found himself in considerable trouble after a dispute over a noisy tradie.

The Gold Coast Bulletin reported that in May last year, a tradie began water blasting a neighbour’s roof and Skyrme started yelling and swearing at him before trying to turn off the equipment.

Andrew Skyrme blew up deluxe at his neighbour. Picture: Facebook/Andrew Skyrme

He then argued with the neighbour over their shared fence and when the neighbour came within centimetres of his face, Skyrme shoved him back and said “get out of my face or I’ll knock you the f**k out”.

Skyrme hit his neighbour in the head, knocking out his dental bridge and cracking a tooth, which cost $2705 to fix.

Skyrme, whom the court heard was not in good health at the time and sleeping poorly, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm.

He was fined $400 and ordered to pay $2705 restitution.

It was the waterblasting what done it. PICTURE: BRENDAN RADKE

THE NEVER-ENDING HOME BUILD

NRL great Anthony Minichiello and his socialite wife, Real Housewives of Sydney star Terry Biviano have irked their neighbours in the affluent Sydney suburb of Vaucluse due to the extended time it has taken to build their new home.

10 years after the well known couple bought in the harbourside locale in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs – where the median house price is $7.953m, according to PropTrack – the home is still not finished.

The couple bought the 1980s brick fixer-upper for $3.1m in 2014, with a view to spending $560,000 on a partial renovation.

The scaffolding is gone, but 10 years on no one is living in it.

Maybe should have just kept it.

But the uninhabited shell of a brand new multimillion-dollar concrete home still stands in the original home’s footprint surrounded by a collection of increasingly frustrated neighbours.

“Building a house has been a huge learning curve for us, as first-time builders. Especially during Covid. The pandemic hit and everything shut down. Now we’re back into it. Work finally recommenced this year,” Minichiello told The Daily Telegraph of the protracted project.

Neighbours, that include some of the city’s most influential, affluent and important people have dubbed the home the ‘Mini-mansion’

Minichiello admitted costs on the project had “blown out” following the pandemic, something broadly felt throughout the construction industry.

He later said he hoped the family would move into the home in Easter this year but that hasn’t happened yet.

Mini was great at footy. He’s not so great at renos. Picture: Getty

TROUBLE ON MILLIONAIRE’S WALK

Melbourne identity Eddie McGuire was earlier this year ensnared in a bitter neighbourhood dispute in affluent Portsea on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula in an area know as ‘Millionaire’s Walk and enjoyed by such luminaries as billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox and former AFL boss Gillon McLachlan.

Eddie McGuire found himself in the Hot Seat. Picture: Getty

McGuire was called to give evidence before court as neighbours Ann Hyams and Helen Blythe went to war over the ownership of a small boathouse.

McGuire has rented the beachside property from Hyams for $100,000 a year and had been locked out of the boathouse by Blythe due to the dispute that dated back over 50 years.

The judge hearing the case eventually found in favour of Hyams and granted her ownership of the boathouse after McGuire’s testimony.

The humble boathouse that launched a neighbourhood war.

BILLIONAIRE IS ‘BLOCKING THE WAY’

Aussie richlister Clive Palmer has come under fire after a decision to block access to a golf course left locals fearing for the safety of native wildlife and motorists, sparking a feud with his neighbours.

News.com.au reported in July, Residents of Yaroomba on the Queensland Sunshine Coast claim billionaire owner of the luxury course, Palmer, is putting the lives of eastern grey kangaroos at risk after he blocked the animals from accessing the course safely through an underpass.

It’s Clive’s way or the highway. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

With a tall metal gate fitted with spikes and padlocks preventing the kangaroos from entering the Palmer Coolum Resort, locals said the animals have been left to use an alternative route to cross a major highway.

If the gate were to be opened, it would allow local wildlife to pass between the east and west sides of David Low Way.

Those petitioning for the mining magnate and former politician to open the gate said three kangaroos and a joey have been killed on the nearby road, with some fearing it’s only a matter of time before someone is involved in a serious accident or killed.

While some believe the safety of local wildlife has compromised the development in the area, others believe it is a direct result of the blocked thoroughfare which was previously used for golf cart access.

Local councillor Taylor Bunnag said he is contacted by concerned residents and motorists who are growing “very frustrated” every day.

Palmer has come under fire after a decision to block access to a golf course has left locals fearing for thesafety of native wildlife and motorists. Picture: Supplied

The gate underneath David Low Way has blocked the thoroughfare used by the kangaroos. Picture: Supplied

STUBBORN AUSSIE NEIGHBOURS

This Quakers Hill family from Sydney’s north has been in and out of the headlines for over a year now after repeatedly turning down developer requests to sell their home.

The plight of the Zammit family, who have rebuffed mega offers of as much as $50m for their prized land, has received worldwide attention.

A year ago the Zammits began making waves when they declined to sell their 20,000 sqm parcel of land to developers who had purchased all the land around them.

The family had received offers of up to $50m to sell their home to complete the new development named The Ponds, but turned them down.

The neighbourhood ain’t what it used to be. Picture: Channel 7

The Zammits continue to hold firm despite the fact Sydney and Australia’s skyrocketing home prices could turn them into instant millionaires if they took the money on offer.

Now, others who have been in similar positions are backing the Zammits to the hilt and have warned that there could be an unexpected downside if they do take the money and run.

A Facebook post last week hailed the Zammit family as a “symbol of uniqueness and resistance in the neighbourhood”, to which many respondents agree.

“So beautiful” was a comment from many posters.

Others were more forthright.

“My dad was like that for years,” one Facebook user posted.

“He and my mum gave some land [away] for a soccer field, as their grandson played soccer. The guy who made the [deal], sat on it.

“The council wanted to build homes on my dad’s land so they could apply a city tax.

“Evil. Horrible people.

Their home is their castle. Picture: Channel 7

“The land went back to my brother.”

Last year, one of the property’s owners, Diane Zammit, 50, told news.com.au the neighbourhood used to be “farmland dotted with little red brick homes and cottages” where space was aplenty. “Every home was unique and there was so much space – but not any more. It’s just not the same,” she said.

The property boasts a lush green lawn in stark contrast to all the sites around it and also a huge 200 metre driveway.

But just metres away are rows and rows of carbon copy grey houses crammed into tight blocks as part of a major development.

We love it here. Picture: Channel 7

The high-density neighbouring homes are built right up to the fence of the property, and neighbours reportedly don’t want the owners to sell as they like living in a cul-de-sac.

It’s estimated 50 houses could fit on the block of land if they followed the same style as other developer homes in the area.

JENNIFER HAWKIN’S RENO ‘THE BIGGEST THING EVER’

Former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins and her husband Jake Wall are copping criticism from enraged neighbours over their $30 million mansion construction.

Hawkins and Wall, who together own the design and construction firm J-Group, are building a mega mansion in the exclusive suburb of Whale Beach, 40km north of Sydney’s CBD.

The celeb couple do not intend to live in the property, with reports the home has been already sold to a mystery buyer for a little under $30 million.

Jennifer Hawkins and Jake Wall are upsetting locals on the Northern Beaches.

As renovations continue, the constant stream of construction trucks and alleged illegal parking has left local residents fuming.

According to media reports, one local resident had his driveway blocked off for hours a day on several occasions while another had his lawn destroyed by cement mixers.

Aerial pictures show the enormous scale of the home – dwarfing nearby dwellings and appearing more than three times the size of its nearest neighbours.

Work on the $30 million compound began in 2022 after receiving approval from Sydney’s Northern Beaches Council for $3.3 million worth of construction.

Construction of the new ocean front home of Jennifer Hawkins and Jake Wall in Whale Beach. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The home dwarfs others nearby. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Construction is two years and counting. Picture: Jonathan Ng

After almost two years the project has still not been completed and locals claim the ongoing cost has far exceeded original planning submissions by nearly $7 million.

One upset resident says they were sick of the ongoing construction and described it as “the biggest thing in the whole peninsular at the moment”, reports the Daily Mail Australia.

“It’s so huge, it’s out of character with Whale Beach, it’s too big and unnecessary. I have anxiety now,” the resident said.

“I’d say the costs now would be a minimum of $10 million. I think the council is missing out on all this money because they are not checking up on the project.”

The Northern Beaches Council reportedly confirmed costs of the original project had been exceeded, but there was no legal precedent for charging additional fees.

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