Browse Forums Buying Land 1 Oct 14, 2015 11:25 pm Hi guys, My cousin signed a contract for a home and land package for a later stage in Keysborough Vic through an agent who is acting on behalf of a developer. (I am not naming the stage, agent and developer for obvious reasons). After 8 months, the agent called and said the contracts are void because the land owner couldn't get council approval for the original sub-divided land and have since purchased an adjacent piece of land and re-subdivided the whole area. The failure to get council approval was the excuse they verbally provided to cancel the contracts and gave 2 options: (1) get your 5% deposit back and go away (apparently there is a huge waiting list to buy land there anyway) (2) choose a new subdivided block of land and go through a new purchase with the revised land price with a provision of 5% discount (do note that land prices have increased up to $100,000 or more in the past 8 months, depending on which block you've purchased, size, orientation, etc) - agent was also putting pressure that there is a huge waiting list willing to grab any available blocks of land in the area. Our whole family is dumbfounded. My cousin spoke to our builder, whom he had paid some deposit as well. We were advised that more than 20 blocks of land were affected. All affected parties think that the additional $100,000 (average or similar magnitude), for each block, which is $2,000,000 (over $2 million) as a rough estimate of additional profit, is very likely the key reason for this action by the developer. We also suspect that the developer would likely have had legal advice to confirm their ability to cancel the contracts. If you put yourself in our shoes, you'd understand that this is causing a lot of grieve to all our families who have been saving up for the house. The contract was signed in February, the house was supposed to be completed around June next year. We have been collectively saving and progressively paying the deposits as required. However, the developer conveniently cancelled the contract in October and asked us to fork out up to 20% more to sign new contracts if we are still interested in a house there. Do you know of any such precedence? Any advice? Or are any of you also an affected individual? Is there a way to get in touch with the other buyers? This has been very hard for us so any advice would help. We are still waiting for a written statement from the developer. Would really value your views. Thanks. James Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 2Oct 15, 2015 4:31 pm I read an article in the age some months ago about developers doing this somewhere else, i.e. cancel contract at the last minute, then resell the blocks at a higher price. In this case the sunset clause had passed (2 years). I think they were allowed to do it too. Definitely seek legal advice, maybe start with your conveyancer? Sorry to hear this happened to you its sad that developers hold our whole lives in their hands and they don't seem to care that much except to make money. I live in Keysie but am building elsewhere, and I've been watching the estates go up for the last few years and it does seem the area is in high demand. Good luck, I hope you find a happy solution. Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 3Oct 15, 2015 8:57 pm Hi Dawn, Thank you very much for your reply. We will seek legal advice and talk to our conveyancer. Your response and empathy is very appreciated. Kind regards, J aloenyx I read an article in the age some months ago about developers doing this somewhere else, i.e. cancel contract at the last minute, then resell the blocks at a higher price. In this case the sunset clause had passed (2 years). I think they were allowed to do it too. Definitely seek legal advice, maybe start with your conveyancer? Sorry to hear this happened to you its sad that developers hold our whole lives in their hands and they don't seem to care that much except to make money. I live in Keysie but am building elsewhere, and I've been watching the estates go up for the last few years and it does seem the area is in high demand. Good luck, I hope you find a happy solution. Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 4Oct 16, 2015 8:10 am I read the same article! I'm sorry that this has happened to you. I think the developer should at least pay you the interest earned on the funds held by them. It is rightfully yours (yes I know it may not be much), but this is how they collect revenue to fund their projects. Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 5Oct 16, 2015 4:12 pm There really should be a penalty built in. After all, I'm sure if my land settled and I went "opps sorry I haven't got the money" or "Im no longer interested" they wouldn't just let me off. Especially if the price of land went down! Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 6Oct 16, 2015 6:33 pm It happened to me years ago, the developer cancelled the contract after the time period to get tittles elapsed. But the kicker is is that they never advised us for six months and were giving us updates on when the titles were being released. My wife called one day and got a new person who casually advised us that the contract was cancelled months ago, yet meanwhile they were giving us updates on a block that we had no contract on. Took them to the relevant authority who ruled that they acted unconscionable but not illegally. If I wanted to get the cost involved in land price increases over this time I would have to sue, not worth it. They offered to sell me the block at the "new" price to which I told them where they could put their new price. Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 7Oct 17, 2015 8:38 pm Dear safaa81, aloenyx and Decka, Thank you so much for responding. I have read your comments and appreciate you sharing your experience. It is a pretty tough time for us. It's just a waiting game. We were given the worst possible news and then asked to wait indefinitely for a response.... they said Tuesday, then on Tuesday, they said Wednesday they will give a response, and it goes on,... now they say early next week we should get a response. It's unbelievable. I don't think they understand they're affecting many peoples' lives here. sigh... Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 9Oct 29, 2015 10:40 pm Hope things work out for you. Re: Keysborough Vic - Developer cancels contracts 10Nov 24, 2015 11:42 am Sorry to hear what you're going through. Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be an isolated incident. Just wanted to add that it should be possible to check with the council whether they really did deny approval for the original sub-division; planning permit applications and the like should be public. You may want to give them a call or pay the council offices a visit to find out if there's any truth to what the developer is saying. 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