Sasha Hopkins and the "A Team Property Group"

Hi

The Facebook page for the A Team property group seems to be taken down (his main marketing I believe) and ive heard a couple of his sites are locked up with no work going on(although we are are approaching the Xmas shutdown) .... anybody know anything?

 

Noticed that aswell bit of a worry for a lot of people

 

What’s happened to the rest of the responses to this?
I have seen a lot of advertising for the a team property group (obviously targeted) through fb and insta so have been following this thread and other socials of theirs.

Never invested with them though as it sounded to good to be true

 

Where is this at?

 

Developer who owns site where two houses were set alight had company go into liquidation

Here you go. As reported by the Abc

 

What I want to know is how he went from $9m portfolio at 29 to $55 portfolio at 30

Or are these inflated like most internet marketers claims?

 

in a few easy key strokes.

 

There's a hint on his website "upon completion". I think he counted his chickens before they hatched (counted the projects value upon completion even though they never completed AND even though he didn't own the land).

 

Hi all,

I'm the original poster of this thread, I don't come to this site very often and didn't realize this thread was had been active...

Anyway, an update on proceedings since early 2018... against my better judgement I proceeded into a JV development with the A team, anyway, and it has been a bitter disappointment to say the least, which has set me back years in my investment journey. I honestly wish I stuck with my gut feeling and walked away.

I'll take some time to gather my thoughts and give a timeline with some more specifics at a future date, but to say that the A Team overpromised and underdelivered is a massive understatement.

Like I've seen mentioned throughout this thread, I forked out $16,500 for some kind of coaching/mentoring program, where they "hold my hand" every step of the development journey. I was almost promised 50-60% returns within 12-18 months (by the sales person who started off the process).

The development site was bought within 6 months or so, that part was done relatively quickly, but it just went pear-shaped after that for the next 2 years or so as they struggled to get DA approval from council, or make any sort of meaningful progress.

Communications was poor, would not hear from anybody for months on end, until eventually a monthly "newsletter" was introduced which was basically a copy & paste each month of the same information rehashed. There was no mentoring, no education, and certainly no results.

There was a signed contract by both parties, which stated that they would be liable to pay interest if they hadn't delivered by x date (a couple of years ago now). Some members of the JV took legal action against the A team. The rest of us were told via email recently not to bother pursuing legal action as there's no funds so it would be a pointless exercise.

So basically, contract is meaningless in their eyes and they will not honor the terms of the contract, nor will they provide a refund of the $16,500 entry fee. However, on the contract itself, they put that the return will be 30% (which is after being told 50-60% earlier), and the contract is not given until after you pay the $16,500. So you're basically informed after you have parted money that the gross margin contractually is 30%, which after tax and SMSF fees and the $16,500 entry fee, really doesn't leave much wiggle room for a decent profit.

They've now decided to sell the development site as since they are unable to obtain finance in the past 24 months to fund the development (blaming covid and what not), is and have warned everybody to expect a loss and "that's the risk of being an investor".

From what I understand, there's at least 40 parties to this JV, many of them using SMSF's and all of them are going to get stung heavily by the looks of things.

Someone else already mentioned it in this thread, but Delkins the building company they use are the same mob as the A Team, and they take a 1/3 split of the profit share, (as do the "funders" and the "borrowers". So A Team and "subsidiaries" are being paid on the way in and a third of the profit on the way out.

The final comment I will make for today, is the structure of the JV is super high risk and I was misled in that regard as well. I was informed at the start of the process that there is a central unit trust and was led to believe that I would be a part-owner in the unit trust (with the % of the deposit that I put in of course). In actuality though, there was a central unit trust, but only the "borrowers" got a % in the unit trust (the people that got the bank loan), the "funders" who stumped up their hard earned cash, were actually providing a super high-risk, unsecured loan to the unit trust, rather than be co-owners of the unit trust.

People shouldn't be touching this with an SMSF or otherwise, period. Last year i was hit with an SMSF infringement notice for this investment due to the nature of the high risk of the unsecured loan & too large of a % of my overall balance going into a single investment.

What should have been a 18 month in and out simple exercise has turned into a ~4 year debacle and I'm fully expecting to lose 30% of initial monies, not including the $16,500 entry fee or SMSF structure costs. The least they can do is refund the $16,500 for not performing the service that was promised, but Sasha has already informed us via email that there will be no refunds because they have been "project managing this for the last 4 years"...

I'll post more as I have more time to gather my thoughts, but in the meantime if you have any question or you would like to see any proof of any kind - please let me know

 

Thanks for sharing @born2reign
Besides the $16500 fee, how much more do you need to spend? I guess I am curious to know how much people have lost from this.

 

The $16,500 and the initial investment is all that was payable to the A team.

If investing via a SMSF then you would have your SMSF set up and annual tax return cost (~2k set up and ~1.2k annual tax return for example), over 4 years that's just an extra ~7k to eat away at any "potential profit".

If investing outside of SMSF with normal cash, then this wouldn't be an applicable cost of course.

Won't know exactly how much the ~40 + parties have lost until after the properties are sold and all expenses taken out and the remainder distributed amongst all the parties, but I am estimating 30% of the initial investment.

So if somebody started a SMSF and put in $100,000 into this JV "with the expert holding your hand every step of the way", I fully expect that they will lose at least $30,000, along with $16,500 initial fee and ~$7000 to date in SMSF setup/auditing fees = more than $50,000

In a time period where property and shares have boomed to all time highs, to go back $50,000 in capital is incredibly deflating and frustrating to say the very least.

There's no beating around the bush, it's a 5-10 year investment journey set back for the average person. Just to break even will take the average person another 5 years to make, and then there's the opportunity cost of the massive gains that we've seen over the same time period (despite the property market being reasonably flat from 2017-2019 and the temporary impacts of covid-19 on the share market).

Very disappointing, and I expected more professionalism from this company.

Given what I went through, I was not surprised to read about this:

Developer who owns site where two houses were set alight had company go into liquidation

And my heart goes out to the 77 investors that are owed ~9 million dollars according to the article, people are just trying to better themselves and improve their quality of life / retirement etc., it's a painful experience. The industry needs more accountability and regulation.

 

Generally I would think successful developers would have enough pull to get their own finance rather than trying to get mum and dad investors involved. These type of investment schemes always seem problematic.

If they can guarantee 50% returns on capital then why aren't all the super funds lining up to chuck funds at them? Why can't they get funding through a bank?

 

I wonder if there have been any breaches of the corporations act if money was being raised this way.

 

Construction in QLD was not effected by COVID restrictions. I've been in the construction industry for 18 years and do not know anyone whos job, finance, staff or construction site was impeded or closed over the last 2 years. Most trades have never been busier.

The one known exception being finance halted for a child care building due to obvious concerns during covids peak in 2020. Which was soon after released and the development is now complete.
Another exception is some materials imports were temporarily scarce such as a certain brand of air-conditioner etc at that time. However there was a plentiful supply of other brands.

The delay of finance or construction of dwellings or apartments is likely due to "other" factors.
It cannot be blamed on COVID restrictions.

 

One of their flagship projects in Brisbane went to auction last week.

zero bidders registered.

having been for an open, it seems that whoever arranged for the build has never inspected it, merely project managed from an office in Melbourne and provided no oversight, fit and finish D-

 

1) I would be saying to them stay away from this mob, who are just selling house & land packages in greater north brisbane (at the time) and certainly to stay away from the JV initiative.

I believe there was intent to complete the JV but for whatever reason they bit off more than they could chew after a few successful developments (along with a bit of bad luck with the timing of COVID).

The fact of the matter is the things that were in their control (such as communicating openly and honestly) and the things that they promised ranged from lazy (poor to no communication for months on end) to simply wrong (50+% returns then switching it to 30% after the fee was paid and not providing refunds for services not rendered etc.)

2) I don't know what else I could have done, at the time there was no negative feedback found anywhere (I later found out that they threatened legally anybody who posted negative things and bullied them into removing it, they look like they've given up on doing that now because there's far too many numbers to silence). But in hindsight, I think I could have only asked for the contract up front before paying any fees, and when they did the switcheroo to 30% returns, I should have run for the hills and gotten my $16,500 back via ASIC / ombudsman etc., and not proceed any further after that.

 

Here I upload a FAQ document that was shared after out of the blue we were informed that the project would not be proceeding and instead everything sold as is at a loss.

The final question 15) is what makes me rage:

15. Are the investors legally entitled to a fixed return on their investment?

There is an agreement in place however there are no funds to pursue and it would be a pointless exercise.


This basically tells me from day one that they have an attitude of:

Yeah, we signed a contract but if the project goes bust or doesn't proceed, there's no money in the unit trust, don't bother coming after us legally, as we simply have no intentions of honoring our end of the contract.

They could easily respond to things within their control and refund the $16,500 while everybody takes a haircut on the initial capital / SMSF fees etc., they make enough profit from all the JV's and the rest of the business activities, that they could operate like this even though we would all still make capital losses all round.

 

It seems many invested without legal advice. If you have loaned a company money and it has no money or assets to repay then it does not matter how tight the contract is there is nothing to repay it with.

But if you have paid a fee to another entity also that fee might be able to be recovered if that entity has assets.

Where there any personal guarantees given?

You might also be able to pursue the directors of these companies, even if trustees, if they have breached their director duties.