Meakes appeared before the tribunal at a preliminary hearing in Sydney on Thursday. Lehrmann was not present.
Lehrmann,who lost a multimillion-dollar defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson last month,had his rent at the luxury property covered by Seven.
During the defamation case,the Federal Court heard Seven spent about $100,000 paying Lehrmann’s rent for a year to April 2024 under an exclusive interview deal.
Meakes’ dispute with Lehrmann reportedly relates to alleged damage at the northern beaches pad,while a second but linked matter relates to rent.
Lehrmann has until May 31 to file any notice of appeal against Justice Michael Lee’s decision to dismiss his defamation suit over an interview with Lehrmann’s former colleague Brittany Higgins,broadcast on Ten’s The Project in 2021 and anchored by Wilkinson. He had claimed the interview defamed him by suggesting he was guilty of sexual assault.
Lee found Ten and Wilkinson had proven to the civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that Lehrmann raped Higgins in Parliament House in March 2019 when they were working as staffers to Liberal senator Linda Reynolds,who was then the defence industry minister.