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A magistrate has
ordered one of Victoria's biggest rural real estate
developers to refund a single mother of three half the
price she paid for a house after she had been duped into
paying far more than it was worth.
The developers sold the
house to the woman, a first home buyer on a pension, in
dealings the magistrate said were misleading and
deceptive and/or unconscionable conduct.
The verdict by
magistrate Bernard Coburn in the Ballarat Magistrates
Court is being hailed as a significant victory for
Consumer Affairs Victoria, which took the case to court.
Consumer Affairs
Minister John Lenders described the decision as
fantastic for consumers.
Mr Coburn said Kellie
Jane Brown had paid $55,984 for the house she could have
had for $26,000.
The director of
Consumer Affairs Victoria, David Cousins, took the case
against Astvilla Pty Ltd, Perna Pty Ltd and Livio
Cellante, on behalf of Ms Brown, who bought the house at
11 Bowman Street, Warracknabeal, in 2001.
Livio Cellante is
general manager of the two companies. His sons, Romano
and Massimo Cellante, are the directors and
shareholders. The Cellante family also runs Vic
Properties in Templestowe Heights.
The owner of the house
had been trying to sell it for seven or eight years but
Luke Wissell, an employee of Astvilla, had told Ms Brown
if she did not sign up immediately, the house would be
"snapped up overnight".
Mr Coburn also outlined a
series of sales techniques he said had been deliberately
employed by the defendants to restrict Ms Brown's
chances to establish the fair price, while Jeanette
Porto, office manager for both companies, had
discouraged Ms Brown from hiring a solicitor.
Mr Coburn described
this as "a logical step in the defendant companies'
sales strategy of ensuring Ms Brown had no |
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access
to advice other than theirs". Perna Pty Ltd had
also omitted information from documents that would have
alerted Ms Brown to the date when Perma bought the
property and the amount they paid.
"The efforts to
keep Ms Brown ignorant continued on when the contract of
sale was prepared, with vital material excised,"
the magistrate said.
Mr Coburn also found
that Livio Cellante had deliberately delayed Ms Brown
from getting possession of the property because one of
the defendant companies had yet to buy it.
She was also shown the
property on a Sunday, preventing her from getting
information from other agents in the area.
The magistrate
described the defendants as "uncaring" of Ms
Brown's rights.
The magistrate said
because Ms Brown relied on misleading, deceptive and/or
unconscionable conduct of the three defendants, she paid
$29,984 more than the true value of the property. He
ordered the defendants to refund her that amount and to
pay her $1600 compensation for the extra rent she paid
while waiting to get possession of the house.
The magistrate found
Perna sold the house when it did not yet own it.
Observing that the defendants were still doing that, the
magistrate issued an injunction restraining them from
claiming they were the owners of properties when they
were not.
Documents showed the
Cellante group had bought 30 properties in the area for
an average of $20,772 and sold them for an average of
$48,433.
The defendants also
showed Ms Brown houses that were in such a state of
disrepair that she would then look more favourably on
the overpriced house in Bowman Street.
The
Age website |
