Elevate Ormeau land buyers left distraught as developer CFMG cancels contracts

Buyers of land at a Gold Coast estate have revealed their devastation after their contracts were cancelled, with one couple saying the stress had caused them to split.

IN August 2020, Daniel Lees and Sara Collins were planning their future together. They put a deposit on a block of land. They hired a builder. They began designing their “forever home”.

As they counted down the days until they could move in with their children, they started planning their wedding. Ms Collins bought her “dream” dress.

They bought a pet – a German Shepherd puppy – thinking they would soon have a good-sized garden.

Nineteen months later, those hopes and dreams were shattered. The developer behind Elevate Estate at Ormeau Hills pulled the pin on their contract, terminating it by way of a controversial “sunset clause”.

Doing so is not prohibited by Queensland legislation. But it devastated Daniel and Sara, who not only lost their dream home, but each other.

“That block of land and all the drama that went with it cost me my relationship. Absolutely destroyed my relationship,” Ms Collins said.

“My ex-partner has an auto immune disease. He’s also a police officer. Stress and all those things make it (the disease) worse.

“I was going to marry him. We went and bought a wedding dress. My dream dress, everything. We were each other’s soulmates.

“And this has destroyed us.

“We were always spoken about as the couple everyone wished they were in, now we​ don’t even speak any more.”

Daniel Lees and Sara Collins before they split.

In common with other buyers, the couple’s fears grew steadily across 2021 that everything was not quite right at their site.

Little development activity took place.

Ms Collins spent many hours talking to representatives of the developer and its agents, chasing down information, fighting for progress.

But it was to no avail.

As is common in residential land sales in Queensland, a “sunset clause” in their contract allowed either party to terminate the agreement if registration had not been achieved 18 months after signing.

The clause in the couple’s contract came into effect in February. They were informed that it was being invoked by the developer a month later.

Ms Collins has now been left to sleep at a friend’s home with her five-year-old son. Mr Lees lives in an Upper Coomera house with his seven-year-old son and the couple’s two dogs, where he pays the rent and expenses from his income alone.

“The sheer stress of everything made us split,” Mr Lees said.

“We bought together, we were going to build our house. We even bought another dog as well because we were expecting to be in this place with a nice large back yard.”

Daniel Lees and his two dogs at Elevate in Ormeau Hills, where he had signed up to purchase land with his ex partner. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

After they broke up, Ms Collins said she confronted a representative of CFMG Capital, the developer behind Elevate, about the couple’s plight.

Brisbane-based CFMG – which is split between funds management and residential communities arms – advertises that it creates “real value” for investors through the development of residential land subdivisions. Its slogan is “real people”.

“(I told him) my relationship has been dissolved because of this. I have lost the man that I love because of this, because of the stress that it put us under,” Ms Collins told the Bulletin.

“And you’re sitting there and you don’t give a shit. You get to go home to your family and sit at your dinner table and there’s no one there to take that away from you. And you’ve just taken everything away from us.

“And he just didn’t care. His response was, ‘What do you want me to say?’”

The couple are among a number of people who have had their contracts terminated by way of sunset clauses at Elevate Estate – promised as somewhere where buyers could “let your dream become a reality” – in the last two months.

Blair Eriksson and his fiance signed a house-and-land package in September 2020. Their contract has also been terminated.

“We signed the house-and-land package in September 2020,” he said. “We signed it basically being pressured by the salesman that it was going to be done by December and it would start registration in February.

“He said we pretty much had to sign it there or we were screwed, we were going to be out of the block.

“We’d already been looking for a house for eight months but we kept losing out, so we just thought, ‘we’d got no other chance, it was the last land, so let’s do it’.”

Mr Eriksson said that after signing, he saw little activity at the site in the following months.

“Pretty much nothing was getting done,” he said. “There were weeks and weeks where there was nobody on site. Then the first lot of delays rolled around.”

Another buyer, Sean Donnelly, whose contract has also been cancelled, said he had a similar experience.

“It’s screwed everything up,” he said. “We signed contracts for the block in October 2020. We were told ‘it’s going to be done by April 2021’ – so six months’ time.

“But nothing really happened.

“Now the house that I want to build is fifty grand more expensive because it dragged on so long.

“... The site I was buying, it was $269,000, now going by prices in that area it’d be $450,000.

With the extra $50,000 for the build, that’s a quarter of a million I’m out.”

Mr Donnelly said he also confronted a representative of the developer about the situation.

“He didn’t give a shit,” he said. “He was just like, ‘yeah, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, it is what it is’.”

Daniel Lees at Elevate Estate in Ormeau Hills. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

In updates to buyers, developer CFMG listed a dispute over site access with a neighbouring land owner, material shortages, weather interruptions, rock excavation and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic among the reasons for delays.

They also blamed council bureaucracy for the hold-ups.

Division 1 councillor Mark Hammel said the City was not to blame.

“I have participated in several briefings with City planning officers on the timeline of this development and the detail being assessed as part of the process,” he told buyers.

“I am aware of several examples of City officers waiting for a couple of months for responses to information requests and I am confident that officers have done all that they can to expedite the process”.

The Bulletin sent a series of questions to CFMG regarding the use of sunset clauses at Elevate.

In a statement, CFMG said that its Ormeau Developments subsidiary was working “towards the completion and settlement of contracted lots” at the estate.

“The project has encountered a series of unexpected challenges and we continue to work with our contractors, the local authority and neighbouring landowners to resolve these technical issues in a timely manner,” they said. “The project has also experienced unprecedented weather delays that has further impacted on the progress of the development.

“Ormeau Developments is bound by any legislation regarding off the plan contract sales and will abide by that legislation.”

Mr Eriksson and his fiance are living with her mother and paying rent. Prices have risen so much since they committed to buying at Elevate that they can no longer afford to buy their own home.

“This (living with his fiance’s mother) was only supposed to be a year thing, the family only signed a year lease, but now we’re stuck,” Mr Eriksson said.

“We were supposed to be in a house by the end of last year which now no longer exists.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do.”

ATTORNEY GENERAL ‘TOO SLOW’ TO ACT

Attorney General Shannon Fentiman. Picture: Zak Simmonds.

ATTORNEY GENERAL Shannon Fentiman has asked for the issue of sunset clauses to be considered as part of the Queensland government’s Property Law Review – but any change could be more than a year away.

Ms Fentiman’s move comes after the Bulletin in December revealed people had lost their money because of sunset clauses at an estate in Maudsland. Similar controversies have since been uncovered at estates in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Ormeau and Canungra.

“We are rewriting the entire Property Law Act right now in Queensland,” Ms Fentiman said.

“I hope to have legislation in the parliament at the end of this year or early next year.”

Theodore MP Mark Boothman, who has led calls for legislative change, said Ms Fentiman’s timetable was too slow.

“Why does the Attorney-General wish to cause more heartache for home buyers purchasing off the plan by waiting until the end of this year or early next year before she tables the necessary legislation changes in the Parliament?,” Mr Boothman said.

“If the Attorney-General doesn’t agree with the practice, why not act now?”

Theodore MP Mark Boothman. Picture: David Clark.

Coomera MP Michael Crandon, whose electorate includes the Elevate development at Ormeau Hills where buyers recently had contracts terminated, also wants immediate change.

“Later next year or early next year is going to be too late for many people,” Mr Crandon said.

“We have to remember that when legislation is introduced, it can take up to six months in the portfolio committee process. Typically it’s around three months.

“If you introduce legislation in the first sitting in 2023, you’re not going to have it back for debate until April 2023. Then it’s got to get up the list, you’re talking about June/July next year if you’re lucky for legislative changes to be made.

“... It should be fast-tracked. The government is not prioritising it in the manner which it should be, given that people are being left out on a limb.”

Cooper MP Jonty Bush. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

Jonty Bush, the Labor member for Cooper in north Brisbane, said a number of families in her electorate had also been affected. She welcomed the fact the Attorney-General was looking at the matter.

“I have been notified of two developments in The Gap, where many families have been affected by the developers exercising these non-statutory sunset clauses and terminating existing land sales agreements with buyers,” Ms Bush said.

“I have spoken with Queensland’s Attorney-General about this practice, and she has asked for this issue to be reviewed for reform as part of the Queensland Government’s Property Law Review.

“I would also strongly recommend to buyers to be aware of their risks in this particular clause, when purchasing off the plan and to seek independent legal advice prior to signing any contract.”

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Originally published as Elevate Ormeau land buyers left distraught as developer CFMG cancels contracts