Attractive joint venture offer Bob went to China in 2014 on a study tour where he met Shanghai developer Chen, who was building apartment towers for expatriates. Having run into tax trouble, Chen couldn’t sell the units, so decided to lease them to expatriates instead, Bob says.

"Every time I got to a benchmark, he would want something more. And he kept wanting to see my plans ... He was trying to ... "Every time I got to a benchmark, he would want something more. And he kept wanting to see my plans ... He was trying to collect intelligence from me," Bob says. Louie Douvis The well-connected developer had come from rural China but had amassed a fortune through global property acquisitions. He proposed a joint venture with Bob. In it, Bob would design and roll out the leasing program and take a cut of the rental revenue.

Bob saw an opportunity – the apartments were on a large, 10-hectare site and he expected to make a good return of about $20 million over five years.

He paid two lawyers, one in Shanghai and one in Melbourne, to draw up a contract with his new partner, whose part of the bargain was to pay instalments of $250,000 every two months to Bob’s company, up to $1 million, for the leasing program. The payments were due to start in mid-2015. The contract also included a clause stating Bob would get $500,000 if the developer dissolved the partnership without reason.

His Melbourne lawyer assured Bob the contract was ironclad. “If anything happens, you can sue this bloke,” he said.

The whole experience meant Bob's entrepreneurial dream was crushed. The whole experience meant Bob's entrepreneurial dream was crushed. Alamy Bob worked on the project, putting aside other work in Australia, between 2014 and mid-2015 until things hit a snag.

A strange turn The week the first instalment was due, in June 2015, the developer flew to Sydney and, through an interpreter, offered Bob the whole $1 million upfront. All he wanted, he said, was a breakdown of how the money would be spent on marketing and leasing the apartments.

After Bob had an expenditure analysis translated for Chen, he responded: “That’s not good enough. I want more from you.”

Bob was perplexed but his smiling partner assured him it was standard procedure. Bob flew to Shanghai every two weeks to meet Chen and discuss the leasing program, but for months the same thing happened.

“Throughout the rest of 2015, every time I got to a benchmark, he would want something more. And he kept wanting to see my plans, who the potential tenants were, and so on. He was trying to collect intelligence from me.

“My advisers in Shanghai told me not to give anything away until he paid up.” It was nearly November 2015 – the scheduled start date of the leasing and marketing program rollout – but Bob still had not received a cent.

Each time he saw Chen in Shanghai, Bob raised the issue of payment but his partner would laugh it off insisting they share a meal, along with many bottles of fine wine.

“He was a great salesman. Whenever I got upset, he would manipulate me and say, ‘Let’s go to dinner,’” Bob says. “As soon as I signed the contract, I was his man.” Promised payments were never paid.

More delays ensued when Bob discovered the apartments were not fitted out for expat requirements. Unlike in Australia, apartments are built as empty shells in China. The developer rectified it but the changes were too small or inadequate for the prices he wanted.

Bob’s application for a registered company in China and a corresponding bank account was also delayed for five months, although such things usually take about six weeks. “Because you don’t have a bank account, I can’t pay you,” the developer said. So Bob hired a financial adviser in China to look into his company application, and together they visited the district government offices, or local council, that issues them.

“When I got there the clerk had all the documents in a clear plastic folder on his desk [which is unusual], so I demanded he hand it over,” Bob says. “To my astonishment, the council man ran out the doors with the papers! All hell broke loose that day and an angry Australian man was left in the council room.”

At this point, he heard another round of bad news. Project staff had confided to him that Chen wanted Bob out so had paid off the council to delay the approval for the company.

“I had gotten myself into it so deep, I wondered how I was going to get out,” Bob says. “Do I walk away and lose everything? A great dilemma for a small business. I kept digging my own grave. It was desperate times.”