Dual settlements – where a seller in one transaction uses the funds received to settle another purchase contemporaneously – are common enough in Queensland.

They are always demanding because any hitch on either side can mean that both deals collapse. It’s even more so if the seller has packed up their belongings out of one house and is already in the moving van bound for home No 2.

Triple settlements occasionally occur but they are rare. Consider this example that was reported recently in the other Sunshine State: Florida, USA.

New York City shock-jock Howard Stern paid $52 million for a Palm Beach oceanfront with 3,600 m2 of living space. The sellers used $11.95 million of those proceeds to buy a condo in nearby Two North Breakers Row (including poolside cabana) and the condo vendors in turn applied $7.4 million of that sale to buy a waterfront five bedder with 650m2 of floor space north of the exclusive Palm Beach Country Club.

Agents involved in the transactions were sworn to strict secrecy and the stacked up deals were only uncovered by titles registry searches.

This three-way deal gives a new dimension to the term “tightly held.”