HAVEN MONEY
Congratulations to Christy who wins $1,000 for her Golden Hour photo. We received a skyful of stunning sunset shots, but this silhouetted family portrait against a Titian sky, rolling hills and rippling shoreline was a dead-set winner. Thank you for the great accompanying story too Christy, indeed a story of our time! “T his photo was taken of my family at Eurimbulah Creek Campground in Queensland. We had just been to a wedding in Bundaberg and then 12 adults and 12 kids headed off camping for a week. One of the campers was my brother who was the MC at the wedding. His constant complaints of feeling really sick were put down to a hangover. Until we realised he had COVID, meaning that everyone who gave a speech at the wedding now also had COVID, meaning that their families now also had it. So, after one amazing night camping and taking this incredible photo, we jammed everything back in the cars (of course it rained, so it was the worst pack-up ever!), bundled up all the sick campers and headed back. It’s funny now, but it was not fun at the time! Side note: I was one of the lucky four of 24 that didn’t get it. I still hold that multiple glasses of wine kill off the germs.”
Nothing to declare … really? It was once a case of buyer beware, but new laws are forcing sellers to ‘fess up to everything from termites to crime scenes. What would be a deal breaker for you? Flooding? Asbestos? A meth lab? They’re all on a growing list of issues homeowners must now declare before selling a property in most Australian States. Queensland is the latest region to formalise protections for buyers with new property laws before Parliament now. Once upon a time it was up to buyers to sniff out potential issues – searching title deeds, flood maps and planning records to find out if their dream home could actually turn out to be a bit of a nightmare. But in recent years as property prices escalated, so have expectations that home buyers should be afforded more protections than someone popping out to buy a toaster. DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL While Australian Consumer Law dictates agents and vendors must not lie or mislead, what they are required to disclose voluntarily has often been a grey area. And as more cases cropped up of buyers getting burned by lessthan-forthcoming sellers, State Governments moved to introduce their own mandatory disclosure rules. These required owners and vendors not to conceal material facts that could affect buying decisions. But there was still debate about whether only structural and habitation issues were relevant. One controversial test case in New South Wales concerned a Taiwanese family that unknowingly bought a house that was the scene of an infamous triple murder in 2001. When they found out the family tried to cancel the contract, but the real estate agents refused to refund their $80,000 deposit. The agents argued consumer law did not require they disclose the house’s disturbing history, merely that they not conceal it. And the buyers simply never asked, they said. The agents lost a court battle and were fined more than $20,000. The NSW Government later amended Fair Trading legislation to specify agents must declare, among other things, if a property has been the site of a murder within the past five years.
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