like an onion article âbloody bureaaaaucraaats â thatâs a pisser it is
âAn Australian couple is seeing their retirement plans threatened by a 130-year-old deed error that makes it impossible to sell their property.
Peter and Cheryl Plowman have been living in the same house on Bega Street, in Candelo, on the New South Wales South Coast for 20 years. A few years back, they purchased the house next to them from their neighbor with the intention of fixing it up and selling it for a profit to fund their retirement. Now, after investing their savings in it, the Plowmanâs were shocked to learn that they wonât be able to sell their property to anyone, because the paperwork drafted over a century ago, when the lots were first registered, states that their new house is built on a different lot.
Mr. and Mrs. Plowman live in the fourth house along their street, which would logically make it Lot Four, only in the original deed it is marked Lot Three. When the lot deeds were originally drafted, sometime in the 1800s, the five lots on Bega Street were numbered âone, two, four, three, five,â but the Plowmans had never bothered to check.
Photo: Cameron Tidy/Unsplash
When they bought the official Lot Four home next to them, Peter Plowman did his own conveyancing and didnât spot the mixup, but the lawyer for the prospective buyer interested in the renovated home did. He also figured out that, technically, his client would be buying the Plowmansâ house, which is in a much poorer state, so his clients arenât interested.
âI know where I bloody live,â Mr. Plowman told Nine News. âIâm not having some bureaucrat tell me otherwise. Bloody bureaucrats canât count, and we are the ones paying the price for a mistake that was made 130 years ago.â
Unfortunately, there isnât much he and his wife can do about it. Theyâve repeatedly asked Government officials to rectify the mixup keeping them from being able to sell their property, but they have been told that the deeds are technically correct so theyâll stay the way they are.â
Give it to the indigenous folk f*** it