Consumer Protection issues warning to real estate agents as another first-homebuyer is sold wrong home

A Perth homebuyer is still dealing with confusion and red tape nearly a year after being sold the wrong property by a real estate agent. Nicholas Cronin had been living in his Tapping home for months before he was contacted by a settlement agent who told him about the shocking error. Mr Cronin came forward after reading in The West Australian about a Kelmscott real estate agent who was fined after selling the wrong property in Camillo to a first-homebuyer in 2022. “I am still dealing with the fallout of the same thing happening to me,” Mr Cronin said. “A few months after I moved in, I was contacted by (the settlement agent) who had acted on my behalf, to tell me that the incorrect folio number had been recorded on all the paperwork for the purchase and that it would be necessary for new documentation to be completed,” he said. As was the case with the Camillo property sale, the seller owned two adjacent street-front strata-titled lots that had two certificates of title with street addresses that did not match the physical street addresses of the lots. When one of the properties was sold to Mr Cronin, the sale went through with the real estate agent failing to notice the lot on the purchased certificate of title did not correspond with the lot on the strata plan. “As you can imagine this caused all kinds of issues and in fact it is only February this year that I received the correct bill from the Water Corp,” Mr Cronin said. “In the end I was able to persuade the owner of lot one to change the street address to comply with the official records and after many emails and phone calls the rates, water rates, gas, electricity, home insurance have all now been changed to the correct address although I am still having issues with the NBN and my internet provider.” The blunder has prompted a warning from Consumer Protection which has urged Perth real estate agents to ensure they have proper procedures in place to prevent errors being made in contracts of sale. “Mistakes of this nature are unacceptable and represent major breaches of the laws that are designed to protect both buyers and sellers of real estate in WA,” the spokesperson said. “Buyers are encouraged to contract Consumer Protection if they believe an error has been made in a contract of sale.” Last week, the Kelmscott real estate agency that sold the wrong property in Camillo was fined $7000. It was only when the buyer moved into her home that it was discovered the lot number on her First Home Owners Grant application did not match official records. O’Neil Real Estate was fined $6000 and ordered to pay $1000 in costs by the State Administrative Tribunal for breaching the Real Estate and Business Agents and Sales Representatives Code of Conduct 2016 when it failed to exercise due care, diligence and skill during the preparation of a sales agreement. During the preparation of a sale agreement in March 2022, the agency relied on the street address given by the seller to obtain the certificate of title and strata plan, failing to notice that the lot on the purchased certificate of title did not correspond with the lot on the strata plan that was planned to be sold. The mistake was not spotted during the sale and resulted in the certificate of title being issued in the buyer’s name for the wrong property. The agency has apologised to the parties affected and has also taken steps to ensure that the sales representative who has physically viewed the property correctly identifies it using more than just the certificate of title before preparing the selling agency agreement or contract of sale. O’Neil Real Estate principal Rohan Wieske told The West Australian the agency made a mistake and as soon as that was brought to its attention, it went about about trying to fix it. “We’ve had to cop the penalty, which we’ve done, and we’ve tightened up on some processes around matching title documents with physical inspections of properties,” he said. “It went through us, it went through both sets of settlement agents, it went through the bank, it went through a valuer and unfortunately it wasn’t picked up. “But the owner did move into the home they wanted to buy, the seller sold the property they had intended to sell it was just the legal description on the contract for the block of land that was incorrect — it was a pretty simple fix.” Commissioner for Consumer Protection Trish Blake said it was disappointing the error had not been picked up at any stage during the sale process. “Mistakes of this nature are unacceptable and represent major breaches of the laws that are designed to protect both buyers and sellers of real estate in WA,” she said. “Agents must ensure that they have the proper procedures in place to prevent any errors being made which could result in disciplinary action. “There was no way for the new homeowner to know they were being sold the wrong property but buyers could put their mind at ease by asking their real estate agent whether they have properly checked the property information before signing a legally binding contract.”