Salinity issue after purchase of land

Earlier this year we purchased a block of land with the intention of building our PPOR. We settled on the land and found a builder then submitted the plans to council. Part of our submission to council was the inclusion of a pool.

Through contact with the pool builder we discovered that our land had high salinity levels. We are now having to pay $5500 to upgrade our building slab and pool shell to counter the high salinity levels.

We feel that we have been ripped off by the developer of the land, in that they did not inform us of the high salinity levels before we purchased the land.

Do we have any rights in recouping the $5500?
 
We feel that we have been ripped off by the developer of the land, in that they did not inform us of the high salinity levels before we purchased the land.
Whilst there is still the element of "buyer beware" in real estate transactions, that has been tipped on its head a little by the "full disclosure" now required following on from the Seth Gonzales case.

Do we have any rights in recouping the $5500?
If you told the vendor that it was your intention to build on a slab and also put in a pool AND the vendor knew of the high salinity levels AND the vendor knew that the high salinity levels also meant that you would be up for additional costs AND they said nothing or lied THEN you might have a case. BUT bear in mind $5.5K will buy you about 5 hours of a barrister only and you'd better be prepared for lots of emotionally draining times ahead if you decide to persue a claim. Most developers also have company structures in place whereby the development company of a sub-division is an empty shell with no cash or assets, so even a successful claim gets you nothing.

If you grouped together with other like-affected purchasers as yourself and mounted a class action, then you might get somewhere.

In practice, look at the subdivision in Cranbourne Vic with methane gas leakage. That is taking years to resolve and is still on-going AFAIK.

Part of your DD should have been to have soil tests done on the block before you committed to purchase.
 
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