Controversial past of The Block’s new bombshell you won’t see on TV: Bankruptcy, legal woes and ties to the Candyman… meet the renovator who makes MAFS brides look tame

Season 22 of The Block is already shaping up to be one of the most dramatic so far – if the new contestants are anything to go by.

Filming kicked off this month in the bayside suburb of Mount Eliza, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

And the drama began before the Blockheads even arrived on set, as producers were forced to do a last-minute cast swap when a NSW team pulled out days before filming began.

However, the saga may have only just begun as the replacement team from Queensland seems to have a few skeletons rattling in the toolshed. 

Chantel Green (formerly Bundalo) and her boyfriend Wyatt Randall were pictured on The Block set a few weeks ago, taking their first walk around the building site and filming their introduction segments. 

A glance at their social media accounts shows the pair are deeply involved in the fitness world, with Chantel owning an activewear line called Her Form and the couple jointly running fitness and nutrition app Finding Form.

However, when the Mail did some further digging, we discovered Chantel has some interesting family ties – and a history of bankruptcy. 

When contacted for comment earlier this week, Chantel did not respond and swiftly switched her Instagram account to private, while Wyatt deleted his altogether.

Here’s what we know so far.

Chantel and her siblings come from a construction family, with her father Nova and mother Sharon at the head of the table.

One of her sisters, Tijana, who was once a finalist in the Miss World Australia pageant, hosts the podcast ‘She Rises’ with fitness influencer Ashy Bines; another, Taesha, is married to Gold Coast tobacco tycoon Travers ‘The Candyman’ Beynon.

It would seem Tijana, Chantel and a third sister, Danielle, once worked with their parents at the family construction company, but Chantel now appears to be focusing all of her efforts on the fitness industry.

The Mail also understands the soon-to-be reality star experienced financial difficulty in October 2020 when she was forced to apply for bankruptcy.

Chantel is not the only member of her family to face financial strife, as her father, Nova, also has experience with insolvency.

The Wollongong builder previously made headlines in 2016 after he was forced to pay $71,500 in building fines and professional costs.

Nova, who was living in Illawarra at the time, and his company GC Property Holdings were each charged with four counts of building without a construction certificate.

Nova appeared before Wollongong Local Court on October 20 that year, after an investigation by the council revealed he was erecting four neighbouring homes on Wyndarra Way in violation of the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

Each home had received development consents between July 28 and August 1, 2014, with the condition that Nova obtain a construction certificate before his company commenced any work.

However, according to court documents, Nova went ahead with the builds without obtaining the required certificates. 

Chantel’s father pleaded guilty to all charges in 2016 and was ordered to pay the fines and professional costs, according to court outcome documents seen by the Mail.

Nova told the court he was distracted by news his mother-in-law had died and another family member was undergoing life-threatening heart surgery, and ‘forgot’ that he didn’t have the certification needed to begin building. 

‘It [was] the toughest six months of our lives,’ he reportedly wrote in a letter tendered in court, according to Illawarra Mercury.

‘During this [time] a few things were overlooked or forgotten. [But] GC Property Holdings has built well over 50 houses in the past two years and not once has this ever happened.’

However, Magistrate Michael Stoddart said the local community expected such an experienced builder to be more careful, before fining Nova and his company a total of $66,000 in fines and ordering him to pay a further $5,500 in professional costs.

GC Holdings later went into liquidation in October 2018. 

It wasn’t Nova’s first offence. He faced similar charges in September 2014 when he pleaded guilty to three counts of carrying out development without consent. 

He was ordered to pay $45,000 in fines and $3,400 in professional fees, according to court outcome documents seen by the Mail.

Chantel’s father also had a legal tangle with Travers Beynon, the flamboyant businessman husband of one of Chantel’s sisters, Taesha Bundalo, in 2013. 

Beynon, whose Candyman persona has seen him dubbed ‘Australia’s Hugh Hefner’, took his father-in-law to court over what he claimed were defamatory texts about a property dispute.

Nova allegedly sent a text to several people in October 2012 accusing Beynon of improper behaviour during a Beenleigh property purchase Nova claimed to have conducted in daughter Taesha’s name. 

The property was later sold to a company that Beynon then became a director of.

Beynon said the accusations Nova made in the texts were untrue and then won the case by default because Nova did not launch a defence.

However, the case was later withdrawn after Beynon faced another legal dispute with his own lawyers. 

It’s unclear whether Chantel will mention on The Block that Beynon is her brother‑in‑law.

After all, it’s a family‑friendly show – and Beynon, who shares three children with Taesha and has two adult children from a previous marriage, is anything but.

Until he deleted his account last year, Beynon’s Instagram was a rolling parade of bikini‑clad women, supercars and eye‑watering displays of wealth – his so‑called ‘Candy Shop Mansion’ staged as a playboy’s paradise.

But there are signs of trouble afoot for the smoke shop mogul.

Beynon is being sued by his 79-year-old stepfather Trevor – the founder of the Free Choice tobacco store empire – in an explosive, multimillion-dollar legal stoush.

The Block will air on Channel Nine later this year. 

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