Sydney man finds out he doesn't own property he bought six years ago
A Sydney man who purchased and moved onto a block of land west of the city says he is “gutted” after finding out the property he has been living on for six years is not the one he actually owns.
In a bizarre bungle, Paul Jones has been left confused and upset by the news that his 404sqm property in Marsden Park belongs to council, and his actual land is 40 metres down the street.
The land, purchased for $70,000 back in 2013, was marketed as “a great opportunity to purchase future residential land currently zoned rural”.
The advertisement listed features including a small dwelling on the property, water and septic tanks on site and fencing.
Mr Jones was even shown the land by a real estate agent from Harcourts Rouse Hill before he purchased it, adding to the confusion of how the mix-up occurred.
The property he actually owns is 40 metres away and is an empty, uncleared block of land.
“I feel gutted,” Mr Jones told A Current Affair. “There’s probably $30,000 worth of trees to clear.”
Mr Jones only found out about the bungle in December, when a surveyor informed him that the land he has called home for the past six years is earmarked to become a roadway.
“Any moment council can show up and evict me,” Mr Jones said, adding he is eager to find out how the mix-up happened and who is to blame.
“Is it the council? Is it the conveyancer? Is it the real estate agent that showed me the block of land? Is it the previous owner? Who is it?” he said.
Mr Jones and his wife had added a temporary home on the land but planned to build a permanent home down the track.
Property law specialist Tim O’Dwyer said the situation was “gobsmacking”.
“It’s just mind boggling that for six years these people can live there, they can put their bins out the front of the property and have them collected and that no one in the council does anything about it, no one is even aware in the council that there’s a house on council land,” he told A Current Affair.
“It’s gobsmacking.”
Yahoo News Australia has contacted Harcourts Real Estate Rouse Hill and Blacktown City Council for comment.
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