Not coming up Trumps

Efforts to contact the owner and sole director of Trump Assets Management and sister company City Gardens Management, Yan Xiang Li, have been unsuccessful, and like the Jericho case, property owners claim they have been left out of pocket.

For Harcourts Accommodation Centre owner and Fellow of the Real Estate Institute, Patricia Bowden, events such as the Jericho and Trump collapse can be traced back to the Real Estate Agents Act, which allowed anyone to set themselves up as a property manager.

"I could see this sort of thing was going to happen in the future, if they deregulated property managers," she said.

Previously, real estate regulations "brought property managers under control so these types of things don't happen, and if they do there are serious repercussions."