Kiwi model Kylie Bax and husband Spiros Poros Australia Fashion Week in 2012. Photo / Getty Images
Kiwi model Kylie Bax and husband Spiros Poros Australia Fashion Week in 2012. Photo / Getty Images
The ex-husband of model Kylie Bax has taken legal action and laid a police complaint after finding he was not on the ownership documents of the marital home after the marriage disintegrated.
Spiros Poros presented the High Court and police with a signed sale and purchase agreement for the $1.3 million Cambridge farm and homestead which he and Bax had signed.
He also showed the High Court and police documents registered just months later - and only months before the marriage broke down - in which his name was excluded from ownership.
Former model turned horse trainer Kylie Bax with former husband, photographer Spiros Poros. Photo / Richie Robinson
Poros alleges that he was removed as purchaser without his knowledge or consent. He claims that even though the document authorising the change of ownership purports to have his signature, he did not sign it.
Police said that after a thorough investigation, they found insufficient evidence to charge anyone in relation to Poros' complaint.
Bax told the Herald on Sunday her ex-husband had no claim on the Cambridge horse farm bought after she returned from more than a decade modelling overseas.
The farm is currently owned by the Gold Eye Trust, of which Bax is a beneficiary.
Bax said: "From my point of view, he says one thing and I say another. There's no dirt under my fingernails.
The $1.3m Cambridge homestead, with horse farm, at the centre of the dispute. Photo / Supplied
"You're looking to find dirt on me. I'm a Kiwi and he's not a Kiwi. I'm not interested in trying to defend myself when I've done nothing wrong.
"He's never had a penny to his name. He's never had any funds go in the Gold Eye Trust."
Greek-born Poros, 48, is a photographer and former model who met Bax in Los Angeles in 2003 during a photo shoot.
They married in 2004 and have three children together. The marriage ended in May 2014, in the year after Bax returned to live in New Zealand.
The allegation over the property purchase emerged during the breakdown of their marriage and is recorded in High Court judgments.
Details in the judgments show the Cambridge farm which is the focus of the court claim and police complaint was bought in late 2013.
The sales and purchase agreement was signed on September 7, 2013, with the transfer of ownership taking place on November 29, 2013.
The couple pictured in 2013. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
The judgment, and property records, show the Cambridge farm was transferred into the ownership of Bax and her parents, Graham Bax and Helen-Gaye Bax, as trustees for the Gold Eye Trust.
Poros' name does not appear on the ownership documents.
It was followed by a further transfer on February 12, 2014, when the property was transferred into the names of Bax's parents alone.
When the marriage broke down in May 2014, Poros was served a trespass order from the Gold Eye Trust, which - by that time - was the registered owner of the property.
Poros said he had believed he was the owner of the property, along with Bax, after signing the sale and purchase agreement together.
In the most recent case, Poros sought the court's backing to obtain legal documentation related to the sale and transfer of the Cambridge farm from the lawyer who had handled the property purchase, Maurice Burney.
Burney had refused to provide the information, saying Bax, her parents and the Gold Eye Trust were his clients and the information was confidential.
The High Court rejected his argument, saying Poros was also Burney's client at the time of the property purchase and the information also belonged to him.
The judgment said the couple - as they were at the time - bought the Cambridge property together. "The copy of the agreement in evidence shows that they are both named as purchasers."
Former model turned photographer Poros with actress Keira Knightley. Photo / supplied
Instead of the Cambridge property being transferred to Bax and Poros, the judgment reveals there was a legal agreement which saw the Gold Eye Trust listed as the owner.
The judgment records the creation of a "deed of nomination" - a legal instrument which transfers rights to a third-party.
In this case, it was a document which was said to have allowed the Cambridge farm to be transferred to the Gold Eye Trust. It would have required Bax and Poros - as signatories on the sale and purchase agreement - to have signed their rights over to the Gold Eye Trust.
The judgment stated: "The authenticity of Mr Poros' signature on the deed of nomination is in issue. Mr Poros denies that he signed the deed."
The judgment stated Poros provided an affidavit from an expert in examining documents who said "the signature is not Mr Poros'".
The judgment said: "Mr Poros says that he was removed as purchaser without his knowledge or consent."
The judgment also said Poros was removed as a beneficiary of the Gold Eye Trust.
In a complaint by Poros to police, he claimed he was removed as a beneficiary of the Gold Eye Trust on October 30, 2013.
Spiros Poros, from his modeling days. Photo / Supplied
Model Kylie Bax on the cover of Vogue Italia. Photo / Supplied
The police complaint documentation also shows the deed of nomination transferring Bax and Poros' rights over the farm to the Gold Eye Trust was completed on November 15. Poros, in his statement to police, said he was "100 per cent clear that I did not sign it".
The family moved into the new home in mid-January, shortly before it again changed ownership on February 12, 2014.
According to his police statement, Poros started work teaching photography at St Peter's College outside Cambridge, he and Bax went to a horse-racing conference and ran an event for their horse syndication business.
They also posed together in a Woman's Day magazine spread and he launched his photography career in May with an exhibition at the Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland.
And then, without any warning - as Poros tells it - events transpired which ended the marriage, suddenly and irrevocably.
Photographer Spiros Poros, who has taken legal action in a bid to assert a claim to the home he once shared with model Kylie Bax, his former wife. Photo / Dean Purcel
There are elements of the story which cannot be told for legal reasons. The Herald on Sunday has investigated those aspects and considers they do not leave readers without pertinent information.
Poros moved to Auckland by July 2014 and took a copy of the sales and purchase agreement to Kensington Swan lawyers. He said he was stunned to find a search for ownership revealed his name was not on the property documents.
The lawyers put a High Court caveat on the property, barring the Gold Eye Trust - or any of its trustees - from selling the property while the legal order was in place.
Before the 2014 split, Spiros Poros with then wife Kylie Bax, flanked by Sir John Key and National MP Nathan Guy. Photo / Supplied
The caveat registered Poros' "beneficial interest" in the property, saying the couple had been married nine years and bought the Cambridge farm together.
The document, lodged with the High Court, stated "for reasons unknown" the ownership of the property went to Bax and her parents and then, later, to her parents.
Poros' statement to police - given in 2017 - was made with the understanding "it is an offence to make a statement that is known by me to be false or intended by me to mislead".
In June 2018, after an investigation, Poros was told no charges would be laid. A senior police officer said there was a "lack of evidential sufficiency".
In his statement to police, Poros talks of meeting Bax in 2003 in Los Angeles when he was working as a photographer and she as a model.
They first bought a house the following year, according to his statement, with US$20,000 from "shared funds from our joint incomes" and mortgage payments from their joint Citibank account.
"Although our incomes were combined, Kylie was always the person to prepare our tax returns in America. She handled most of the financials in our relationship."
Although bought with shared funds, the Kirkwood Drive home near the Sunset Strip in LA was registered in Bax's name, said Poros, with concerns his former partner - and mother of his first child - "may have pursued me with financial claims".
They had a child later that year, married in Las Vegas the following year and, two years later in 2007, moved to New York as their second child arrived.
When they bought a home in 2008 in the city, Poros said it was again registered in Bax's name. "The purchase of this property came from shared funds of our joint account," Poros told police. He claimed the Manhattan property - which had a US$1.5m mortgage to meet its US$2m price - was transferred to Bax's personal trust.
Correspondence with the police shows the origins of the money, and ownership, were important when investigating the ownership of the Cambridge property because it would show Poros had a financial connection.
By 2009, they were moving again. The family left New York for Athens, Greece, where they rented a property.
Poros provided police with an email between Bax and his sister, Anastasia Porou, at the time they were signing up to the rental.
They were under time pressure, according to an email purportedly sent from Bax's email account on July 9, 2009, and Poros wasn't immediately available.
Bax is said to have told Porou: "U sign ths contract like spiros signature for us. They won't know the difference."
Porou responded 23 minutes later saying: "Kylie - don't think this is possible. They also need signing person's id."
The couple moved from a rental to owning a home in 2010, although Poros told police it was again in Bax's name.
"I wasn't sure exactly how much money we had saved as Kylie handled the finances but I knew the money was secure because Kylie kept telling me it was safe.
"I would give Kylie the money I was earning and she said she was keeping it secure and safe from my ex-wife in case she tried to claim any of it."
Spiros Poros working as a model, before he turned photographer. Photo / Supplied
He told police he understood the money was being deposited in an account Bax held in Monaco and in the Gold Eye Trust.
In October 2011, they moved again - this time to Sydney, Australia, where their third child was born.
By 2013, Bax was talking about moving to live in New Zealand again. Poros told police she wanted to move to Cambridge, where she had family, and the couple browsed farms and properties in the area linked to horse racing.
It was a business in which Bax had deep roots through her parents involvement in horses.
"Our relationship wasn't perfect and we struggled over the years but for the sake of our children we both wanted to make it work," he told police.
They rented in Cambridge while searching for the right farm to buy. Poros, a Greek citizen, was able to live in New Zealand with Bax sponsoring his residency.
The New York property was sold in June 2013 at a profit of $1,530,349, which was paid into the Gold Eye Trust bank account with the BNZ in Cambridge.
"At this stage, I was still a beneficiary of the Gold Eye Trust," Poros told police. After buying a horse and vehicle, Bax sent a text message saying "we will have $1.45m", Poros told police.
"This reinforced to me that $1.45m still belonged to both of us as relationship property," he said.
Model and horse farm owner Kylie Bax, photographed in 2016. Photo / Supplied
The High Court case is currently stalled with the High Court's Justice Graham Lang saying in March it was waiting on the outcome of other proceedings "to avoid the risk of potentially inconsistent findings".
Lang's comments were prompted by a Herald on Sunday application to view the contents of the court file, which was refused.
Lang said: "I do so on the basis that the proceeding is still some way away from trial and much of the material on the court file remains the subject of dispute."
Lang said the court file contained private and sensitive information and the dispute was "one of an intrinsically private nature".
Bax also said she did not want to publicly discuss matters she considered personal. She questioned whether Poros had held proper visa status to be allowed to stay in New Zealand.
She also dismissed the 2009 email sent to Poros' sister, saying: "You can look at an email and make it look like it fits into something and it doesn't."
She said there was information which had been put forward by Poros which had been portrayed out of context.
"I know what you see and I know what the truth is. I've always been straightforward in my personal dealings."
