With the number of unoccupied homes seemingly on the rise, aided by the influx of overseas investment, one young Sydney banker has taken matters into his own hands claiming “squatters rights” to take ownership of an empty home in Redfern. From Domain:
An abandoned house, a missing owner, a mysterious squatter and an archaic law all add up to a puzzle that could lead to a young banker taking ownership of a million-dollar home without paying a cent.
And neighbours now fear this could cause a free-for-all grab for unoccupied properties, particularly those owned by overseas investors.
The Victorian heritage terrace house in Sydney’s inner city at the centre of this strange squabble has an overseas-based owner who can’t be traced and a squatter who says he’s claiming possession using an arcane real estate law…
He has told neighbours he intends to make a claim of “adverse possession” whereby the long-term open and continuous use of a property by an individual can, in some circumstances, cancel out the rights of the real owner…
The rightful owner is a Chinese-born man named Paul Fuh who bought the house in the middle of a row of late Victorian Filigree terraces in 1991. But he hasn’t been seen for the past nine years after returning to China in 2007, and now Mr James – or Mr Robert – apparently believes he could well succeed in picking up the property for nothing…
Good on him. I wish him well.
If you purchase an investment home in an Australian city, for goodness sake rent it out! Otherwise, why should Australia allow foreign investment/ownership of real estate to take place all? Where is the benefit to the domestic population?
