Ambushed with a heritage listing

[Mirv]

Hi everyone,

I have an interesting situation unfolding and I thought I would post it here to see if anyone has any experience/advice/comments to add. Thanks in advance if anyone contributes...

Several months ago my wife and I purchased our PPOR, which we are about to move in to. Last week we received correspondance from the local council informing us of some details of the heritage listing of the house. This was a complete shock as we knew nothing about the house being heritage listed. No disclosure of a heritage listing was offered in any sales literature, advertising material, or in the auctioneer's preamble when encumberances etc are mentioned. In addition, I specifically asked the agent during an inspection if the house was heritage listed...he replied in the negative.

I am in the process of getting all the facts together, however the council has confirmed that correspondence was sent two month prior to the auction to the previous owner advising of a change of status of the property to being heritage listed. Further, the council confirmed the vendor's conveyancer received the appropriate paperwork (the name of the form escapes me) detailing the change, one month before the auction.

The property is a smallish house on a good sized block; it is a lovely property but one that we knew at the time of purchase that our young family would outgrow in 5+ years. Hence our long term plan was to either redevelop the block completely or make some significant modifications to the house. If we knew it was heritage listed with the associated restrictions on later development or immediate improvement, we would have had major reservations about moving forward with the purchase.

I have spoken to a friend who is an experienced agent and he mentioned that this sort of oversight happens more regularly than one may think.

My question is: does anybody have any experience of this sort of scenario, and if the details confirm there was a lack of correct disclosure, where do we stand legally and what would be a likely outcome if we pursued this matter????? My position is that we would have either not purchased the property, or certainly it would have weighed very heavily in our deliberations and certainly heavily affected the price we were willing to pay.

Eagerly awaiting any responses!

Cheers,

M

 

[geoffw]

I've only had one experience- a property where the heritage listing was disclosed.

In our local council area, the heritage listing goes two ways. There are restrictions about the ways in which the property is presented (facade, paint colurs, roofing etc) but an expansion of the building itself, in character, is permitted.

However, the council does permit a dollar for dollar amount, up to perhaps $1000, towards the cost of keeping changes within their guidelines.

 

[Xenia]

I presume you are in Adelaide? Check your form 1 under the heritage disclosure if they ticked no then approach the agent and your conveyancer to see how you could move forward from there.

 

[boomtown]

Shouldnt this have shown up on the searches conducted by your solicitor / conveyancer? I would have assumed that the Heritage Register gets searched for every conveyance.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

Have a chat to an architect or town planner. Heritage listed buildings can be heavily modified in Brisbane.

Failing that, "come on baby light my ....."

 

[BayView]

Is it ACTUALLY listed already, or is the intention of the Council to try and get it listed?

Our previous PPoR was old for the area, and we were approached by the Shire to list it, but we had to say yay or nay and sign the papers.

We said nay as were in the middle of renos. End of discussions with Shire.

 

[weg]

Heritage listing goes both ways here in Adelaide too. One is the Conservation zoning (which my street is and I was not informed about) and the other is individually Heritage listed buildings.

If you want to knock down you will probably have problems, however I've seen a variety of additions (nothing like it's era) built onto the Heratige listed properties, and I've seen one very tacky looking miniture replica of a villa, built on our street that was not at all in keeping with the appearance of the area .

If your intention is to add only, then I doubt you will have too many problems. Speaking for my area only, I have found that people think this zoning is highly desirable and have heard zero negative feedback on renovations or extensions from neighbours.

 

[Dazz]

Look up what the maximum penalty is and just add it to the cost of the demo crew. Move in early on a Saturday morning with the big gear and start smackin' it down. You'll be finished by Sunday arvo, it'll be a vacant block by the time the council boys come back to work on Monday.

Happened here recently. No worries. Cost the bloke 50K....big deal. Much better than arguing the toss with the blue rinse set for 3 years and even then you can't put up what you want.

Practicalities versus legal forms and Heritage documents going on for years and years. I know which one is cheaper and less stressful.

 

[nonrecourse]

A good belly laugh

Look up what the maximum penalty is and just add it to the cost of the demo crew. Move in early on a Saturday morning with the big gear and start smackin' it down. You'll be finished by Sunday arvo, it'll be a vacant block by the time the council boys come back to work on Monday.

Happened here recently. No worries. Cost the bloke 50K....big deal. Much better than arguing the toss with the blue rinse set for 3 years and even then you can't put up what you want.

Practicalities versus legal forms and Heritage documents going on for years and years. I know which one is cheaper and less stressful.

I love this post Daz

 

[keithj]

Look up what the maximum penalty is and just add it to the cost of the demo crew.

IIRC the minimum penalty for demolishing a heritage listed building (or allowing it to be destroyed by fire) in some areas (Brisbane City Council springs to mind ?) was the vacant lot must remain vacant for a minimum of 7 yrs, unless exactly the same house was rebuilt .

 

[Sunfish]

My council tried to pull this on me a little while back so I saw my lawyer. (Have you?)

It seems there is a world of a difference between the powers of local government and that of the state based heritage-nazis.

In my case it seems it was just an off-shoot of council trying to look busy. Beats workin'

 

[asdf]

No disclosure of a heritage listing was offered in any sales literature, advertising material, or in the auctioneer's preamble when encumberances etc are mentioned. In addition, I specifically asked the agent during an inspection if the house was heritage listed...he replied in the negative.

How do agents live with themselves?? At least with a robber, he knows he shouldn't be doing it and if caught, he'll do time. Whereas agents skim off people's hard earned monies and feel absolutely no remorse for doing so, yet boldly advertise how good they are and how much sales they've done in the last whatever months. Bunch of useles, non-value add parasites!

 

[Twitch]

I think this issue is very state & local council specific.

My PPOR is both heritage listed and in an area where all the houses are subject to a heritage overlay. The heritage overlay was spelt out in the section 32, but the heritage listing wasn't. That was announced on the morning of the auction .

Even with the heritage issues though that hasn't prevented us from completely renovating our house and adding a modern extension. The council wanted to make sure that the facade is preserved, which means the house exterior viewable from the street and the front fence.

In the big picture, I'm glad my PPOR is what it is. The streetscape is very attractive, with 90% of the houses being Victorian/Edwardian houses. This adds value. This makes for an attractive place to live. It also prevents our historical houses & areas being turned into streets occupied by multiple ugly appartment blocks.

My advice would be to find out what the heritage listing means, in terms of what you can and can't do. Just because it's listed it doesn't mean you are stuck with the house as is.

Good luck.

 

[Aaron Sice]

hey i heard the bikies were threatening you? didn't they mention something about a molotov-cocktail and your house? you must be pretty scared - i'd move out right away.

 

[Mirv]

Thanks for the responses so far..

Hi everybody, thankyou for your responses and experiences so far.

Dazz - I nearly spat my coffee over the computer laughing with your response!

Blue Card - <sigh> obviously it is school holidays in your part of the country.

The collected experiences of heritage listing are interesting to read. Just to clarify, according to the council it is already listed, and I can't check the Form 1 for a few more days as it is in storage. It's also a heritage listing of the property (not the street scape) by the local council...not the National Trust or anything.

I think from here we will see a property solicitor and see what our options are if we can prove there was a lack of discloser.

Thanks again for all the responses...fire away if you have more nuggets of experience or advice.

Cheers...

 

[Dazz]

Dazz - I nearly spat my coffee over the computer laughing with your response!

Sorry Mirv, I was attempting to provide a practical solution......sometimes, actually quite often I'm finding of late, the endless paperwork / arguing route so richly favoured and preserved by the squirrel brigade is indeed not the most prudent course of action.

...fire away

Now ya talkin' Mirv.