Demolition of developer Mohamed Hadid’s controversial Los Angeles mega-mansion could be derailed by ‘obstructionist bureaucrats’ over property tax issues, a court heard Wednesday.
Douglas Wilson – the receiver appointed by a judge to oversee the tearing down of the giant house – lashed out at the LA County Tax Assessor’s office for throwing a wrench into the ongoing demolition, first reported exclusively by DailyMail.com last week.
‘Remarkably, entrenched bureaucrats at the Assessor’s office are being obstructionist,’ Wilson told LA Superior Court in Santa Monica, California, slamming the assessors for valuing Hadid’s half-built mansion at $30 million, six times what it sold for last December.
When Sahara Construction bought the property in upscale Bel Air for $5 million two months ago, they also agreed to pay for knocking it down, on the understanding that they would get back about $1.2 million in future property tax refunds.
But that $1.2 million is no longer assured.
Demolition finally began on Mohamed Hadid’s notorious Bel Air mega-mansion last week after years of legal disputes and feuds with neighbors
But the demolition of Hadid’s controversial Los Angeles mega-mansion could be held up by ‘obstructionist bureaucrats’ over property tax issues, a court heard today
Douglas Wilson, the receiver appointed by a judge to oversee the tear down, said, ‘Remarkably entrenched bureaucrats at the Assessor’s office are being obstructionist’
Just before Sahara bought the mammoth house, Wilson managed to persuade the LA Tax Appeals Board to reduce the County Assessor’s 2017 valuation of the property from $28.8 million to $8.7 million – which meant a tax refund of $240,000.
But despite the successful appeal which reduced the 2017 value to $8.7 million – and despite the fact that there have been no improvements to the property since 2017 – said Wilson, the LA County Assessor is insisting that the value of the house for the four years from 2018 to 2021 is still around $30 million a year.
So Wilson has had to file time-consuming new appeals against those four years’ valuations.
Wilson called the assessor’s $30 million valuation ‘mind-boggling’ and ‘absolutely illogical.’
‘Any reasonable person could see that the property was getting more and more run down and clearly was not going up in value,’ he said.
He blasted the assessors for forcing him go through possibly many more months of the appeals process adding, ‘The delay could interrupt demolition, prolonging the public nuisance and hazard’ caused by the illegally-built house.
LA Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan scheduled a new hearing for March 29 where he invited representatives of the LA County Tax Assessors office to attend to try to ‘mediate’ the property tax issue.
Meanwhile, Wilson told the court that – without a possible delay caused by the tax problem – he’s targeting demolition to be completed by the end of June.
LA Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan (pictured during a site visit to Hadid’s mansion) scheduled a new hearing for March 29 where he invited representatives of the LA County Tax Assessors office to attend to try to ‘mediate’ the property tax issue
The 73-year-old Palestinian-American tycoon, who is the father of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid, went to trial in Santa Monica last August over the mansion
Destroying the building is taking so long mainly because it sits atop a steep hill overlooking several homes that would be in the path of any rubble or debris crashing downward.
‘We are unbuilding this house the same way it was built,’ Paul Ventura, boss of Sahara Construction, told DailyMail.com. ‘We have to be very careful – we can’t just smash everything down. We have to be a lot more surgical than that.’
So instead of a wrecking ball, ‘we’re using hydraulic excavators with long arms with special attachments on them to take down the structure more methodically and safely, ‘ he added
Ventura stressed that the company is using ‘multiple layers of safety’ in the demolition project, including strengthening existing fencing and installing netting around the site that’s strong enough to stop up to 20,000 pounds of debris from hurtling down the hill.
In addition to the steepness of the hill the four-story house sits on, Sahara has to deal with another problem: the parts of the giant house that Hadid built without approval from LA city planners.
The demolition engineers are using the original approved plans to dismantle the building, section by section.
But, added Ventura, ‘Because the original builder (Hadid) did not build it according to the plans, a lot of the demolition work is exploratory. We have to carefully take down the walls to the steel supporting beams to see what’s there.
‘We’re not sure what we’re going to find when we, say, take down a wall or another part of the structure. Because a lot of the building is not on the plans.
The demolition of the property has been a long-awaited dream for neighbors, Joe (pictured) and Bibi Horacek and John and Judy Bedrosian
How Haid’s house should have looked. His plans included an elaborate Turkish bath, complete with ornate wood carvings, colorful tiles and marble and mirrored walls
Hadid planned elaborate sculptures for the grounds of his now-destroyed magnificent mansion
It was that secret, unpermitted construction, including a 70-seat IMAX theater and a huge wine cellar, that made the house grow to more than twice the 15,000 square feet the city had approved – and led Hadid’s neighbors to sue him.
Joe Horacek, 80, his wife Bibi and two other elderly neighbors, John and Judith Bedrosian, spent four years and $9 million in legal fees, they estimate, fighting a civil lawsuit against Hadid over the now-crumbling, colossus that sits ominously above their luxury homes.
Their battle with the 73 year-old Palestinian-American tycoon – father of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid and star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – came to a climax last September at the end of a civil trial when a Santa Monica jury awarded the Horaceks and the Bedrosians a total of $2.9 million.
But that was bitter-sweet for the neighbors since it barely covered a third of their lawyer fees and was just a fraction of the $26 million they were seeking in damages.
Hadid has filed an appeal against the $2.9 million judgment awarded to the neighbors by the civil trial jury.
