Buried oil tank found on so called Vacant Building Block

3 years ago we purchased an average building block on an estate. We didn't get to build our home until this May. Our builder uncovered a large buried oil tank and the seller of the land refused to talk to us direct and despite promises of assurance that the seller would do the right thing and remove the tank, they referred us their conveyancer. We were going to be hit by house stop build costs and decided to organise the removal of the tank ourselves and then make a claim back on the land seller. The tank which was thankfully found to be empty and was safely removed. It unfortunately left a large hole right in the middle of our foundations and we had to have reinforced concrete piers on the foundation. So we put a reasonable claim to the land seller through their conveyancer for the cost of removing the tank safely and the cost of the piers. After almost 3 months after many emails, phone calls and faxes and despite reassurances that the conveyancer would call us back but never did . We sought advice from consumer affairs and V.C.A.T. Who advised that they had never come across this before but if we wanted to take this to the next level we would need the current address and contact details of the land seller so put this in writing and received a reply stating they had sought legal advise and believe their client's actions are absent of any element of misleading or deceptive conduct under legislation'
Surely whether the client knew about the buried tank or not is irrelevant? The land was not vacant. We were not informed of the former farm and associated buildings or we would have investigated further as I'm sure other purchases of the blocks would have..it is a big estate.
Would appreciate hearing from anyone who has had any similar experience? or any one who has any advise what so ever.

It does sound quite unique but this is why we pay solicitors to do land searches. Titles and council information searches should be pulling this stuff up. I can't imagine a time when an oil tank would be exist without any reference on related documents anywhere but I'm sure it was possible for these things to be overlooked in times passed. I would just be looking closely at what due diligence was done on my behalf prior to purchase.

Have you asked your solicitor to look at whoever did the initial subdivision?

There is your answer!
If you want to prove legal advice wrong it will cost you more than the cost of piers.
Unfortunately life is full of risks

I unexpectedly found old fuel tank on my residential development, we pulled it out, cleaned out the hole, filled it with stabilised sand and kept going.

Hi
thanks for your responses. Appreciate your honesty building-expert and that legal advice was from the land vendor solicitor not mine. The tank had to be removed by a crane and thankfully as it was empty, there where no clean up costs but it still cost me $1000. The hole left 1.5 x 2 x 2m cost me 6 piers at about $2000. Don't know about you but 3K is alot for us and we are not going down without a fight. We have been advised that although it is buyer beware in Victoria with regard to purchasing land and natural things like rock etc found , the land was sold as vacant land and as such the vendor should have cleared all the farm buildings and associated works, which he clearly did not do. We are going to take this to VACT if we do not get a resolution direct from the vendor, think worth gamble if $185 fee.
thanks for your feedback

Wish you luck, you may get lucky.

I agree with building expert. It wasnt a large tank, and really you never know what you are going to encounter under the topsoil. Lots of people bury asbestos this way, rubble, etc. 3K is not such a bad outlay.

Land searches will not necessarily uncover such things either.

Unless the contract specifically states that the vendor warrants the soil to be free of A,B,C etc, you have buckleys chance of achieving anything from VCAT. Even if it did state it, you'd still have buckleys. It would cost you 1OK+ to get a lawyer to mount a case. Forget it and suck it up.

I built my own home about 15 years ago.
I had lived in the old house upon the land
for 6 years before deciding to demolish and rebuild.
My new house was to be a weatherboard on stumps.
When I had all the string lines in place,the old lady
next door stuck her head over the fence and said-
I think there is an old well around there,pointing to the ground.
I did some digging and found some bricks,followed them around
and they formed a circle about 2.4m dia plumb smack under the corner of
my proposed new house.I spanned it with a couple of bored piers 3.6 m deep
each side.hasn't moved.
Strange thing was that after the old house was demolished,and the land
roughly graded,I was looking at dried brown top soil over the whole block
apart from this area which was quite dark in relation to the rest of the block.
Guess in times gone by the old orchardists picked this place to dig their well.
Goes to show,soil tests can't pick up everything.

So would the seller have a right to claim if the find was not a buried oil tank but rather something of value?

Yes RB9, if the tank was full of gold bars, I certainly would not be having a conversation with anyone about anything.
Can understand asking the question though.

I think your just going to have to cop it. With us we were demolishing our house when like chippy the neighbour stuck his head over the fence and said, oh there used to be an old stone wall fence running the width of our block half way down. Yep sure enough scratched a bit of topsoil and I had a foundation 300mm x 400mm x 17m long...had a disgruntled demo bloke because his quote said level and clean block.
How was he to know that was there. To keep the peace I swung him $200 cash and he was happy.