update...

Tuesday 24th November '09
It's difficult to muster up excitement nowadays about the house ordeal. I feel like someone's sucking the air out of the room a little more each day.

I went to see my finance broker early last week to reaccess my financial position and to determine whether or not I would have to submit a new Keystart application. My broker had managed to get his hands on a letter from the developer's solicitors that paints a different picture to what I've been told.

The letter basically says that the developer had applied to purchase the part of the road that they intended to build upon. The Department of Planning and Infrastructure (DPI) had given them approval but there would be a cost involved. The developer would have to purchase the part of the road that they wanted to build on. This cost was yet to be determined and apparently can take anywhere between twelve to eighteen months to finalise. So...obviously the developer went ahead with their plans to subdivide the land and when the DPI got back to them with the price that they wanted for the purchase of the section of road, the developers refused the price and did not wish to continue with the purchase of the land.

To sum it all up, the solicitors said that since the developer at no point in time actually owned the land (the section of the road) nor were they ever entitled to own it, that the contracts for the land that they sold were void.

"What the frack?" you ask?

Yes. How in any reasonable world can the developer sell land that doesn't belong to them? Land that they're not entitled to own?

It would be like me agreeing to sell a car to you. Then a week later I tell you that I can't sell you the car because it belongs to my Mum and she's changed her mind and doesn't want to part with it. Then another week later you find out that my Mum wanted me to buy it off her for more than what you had agreed to pay me for it. So as to avoid making a loss, I told you we couldn't go ahead with the sale.

How is that fair to you?? Especially if the loan you applied for expired a week after I told you you could have the car? If you had known that

1) the car belonged to my Mum, and
2) I had to first negotiate a price with her to buy it from her before I could sell it to you,

you would have most likely gone elsewhere to buy a car if there were time constraints involved with getting the loan.

Right now my builder is waiting to hear back from the State Revenue Board after pleading my case (as well as another client of his) in an attempt to try to secure our full FHOG. He's arguing that we should not lose $7K of the grant because we did everything that was required of us and it was due to the developer's actions that we are now having to submit a new builders contract that falls outside the due date for the $21K grant.

I intend to seek legal advice as to what compensation I can get from the developer. Or even the real estate agents.

Three words...

DUTY OF DISCLOSURE.