Developer Built ate my Waterloo apartment in the search for profit, says Stephen Lee

STEPHEN Lee hoped to marry on the balcony of the apartment he’d contracted to buy “off the plan”. The wedding is still going ahead. The unit isn’t.

STEPHEN Lee had hoped to marry his fiancee on the balcony of the $1.28 million Waterloo apartment he’d contracted to buy “off the plan”. The wedding is still going ahead. The unit isn’t.

Developer Built deleted the apartment as part of modifications to the “George and Allen” project that added five more units — and heaps of profit. Mr Lee said he wasn’t told about the deletion. He discovered it himself. The contract was unwound.

He feels he was misled by Built and the agent CBRE and that if he’d tried to walk away from the agreement it would have been a different story. “They can’t get away with doing this,” Mr Lee said.

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And perhaps that’s right. Regular readers will recall the Bowring family, who paid for paradise only to get a parking lot where their Lane Cove apartment should have been.

The Bowrings are pursuing legal action against the developer, Landmark, and the agent — CBRE again — alleging misleading or deceptive conduct in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

A valuation has been ­undertaken to determine the “opportunity loss” resulting from the alleged misleading or deceptive conduct. That is how much more it would cost them to buy an equivalent apartment in the Mindarie development now versus when they signed in June 2012.

The figure is $280,000.

This model of the George and Allen development at Waterloo.

Melanie Bowring said the family was determined to see the matter through: “I think they (the developers and agent) are going to get a shock.” Landmark and its lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.

CBRE Residential Projects managing director David Milton said: “These are highly unusual situations. In both cases the changes were undertaken by the developer without our knowledge and were beyond CBRE’s control.” A Built spokeswoman said the Waterloo “amendments” were made to “meet council requirements”.

Built offered Mr Lee “several alternatives that would have provided equal, if not better, opportunity in the same development and these were declined”.

Another affected purchaser took one of the alternatives offered.

Eakin McCaffery Cox partner Peter Aked, who is representing the Bowrings, said: “Not infrequently it is the case that an off-the-plan purchaser has little commercial experience. For those purchasers, such as the first homebuyer, there is a real need for greater specific legislative protection.”

Mr Aked said protection was needed “in circumstances where there are changes sought by a developer which are quiet significant and which are first notified after the sale contract has been made and a large deposit paid by the purchaser”.

Stephen Lee outside the Waterloo construction site / Picture: Damian Shaw