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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-29 Daily Xml
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HOUSING TRUST SURVEY LINES

Mr HANNA (Mitchell) (15:46): Today I want to raise an issue with respect to a couple of suburbs that I look after, particularly Sturt and Seacombe Gardens. Most people know that they were Housing Trust suburbs, and many homes were built by the trust in the 1950s and 1960s. One of the problems that has arisen is that the areas were surveyed but, when the homes came to be built, the Housing Trust paid scant regard to the survey lines. So, fencing was erected without due regard to the legal title of the properties. At the time, it did not really matter, because on a particular block all the houses would be Housing Trust properties. They were all public tenants and, whether they were the recipients of welfare or people on low wages, they were able to get a roof over their head.

Of course, the communities have changed, and government policy towards the Housing Trust has changed. It is gradually being run down, and we are still losing hundreds, if not thousands, of housing opportunities a year for people who are less well off. The problem has arisen that, when purchasers of what were Housing Trust properties come to make changes to their land, they find that the fencing and the longstanding use of properties does not coincide with legal title. This has produced a couple of particularly traumatic events for constituents of mine.

I remember visiting a property about two or three years ago, where a young single mum had woken up to the sound of jackhammers dismantling her cement driveway. She rushed out to the builders and said, 'What are you doing? This is my driveway,' and they said, 'The developers bought the Housing Trust site next door. We have checked the survey lines. They go over a metre into your driveway, and we are now demolishing this so we can put up a new fence and get on with building these townhouses.' This woman was tremendously distraught. Legally, there was practically nothing that she could do.

Another problem has just arisen where, similarly, a developer has bought some places on Diagonal Road and simply moved in and demolished a fence, a shed and quite a bit of property on John's place (I will refer to the couple by the name of one of the constituents). John was absolutely shocked that the developer had come in and caused all this property damage. It was pointed out to John that, technically, this all occurred on the property next door, even though his fence had been there for a long time, because his father had purchased the property, I believe, from the Housing Trust.

The claim that we put in to the Housing Trust came back with a fairly quick response from SAICORP, the insurance company covering government assets, denying all liability. The implication of the letter was that, whilst this had been done to John's place, if there was a similar overlap from John's place into his next door neighbour's place—which is Bob's place on Diagonal Road—John could do the same to Bob, because that would be his legal title and he could do whatever he wanted on it, including demolishing the fence and his neighbour's property.

This lack of responsibility on behalf of the Housing Trust in the 1950s, when fences and houses were put up regardless of legal title, is now leading to horrific neighbour disputes where people are threatening each other with demolition and, in fact, demolition of people's fences and sheds is taking place lawfully, apparently. I think there is a good reason for a number of these residents to make a claim against the Housing Trust, and even if the Housing Trust is on good legal grounds for washing its hands of it, there is a real moral responsibility, and I would like to see the government act on this. I will gather the facts and put them before the Minister for Housing, and let us see whether we can come up with some sort of resolution of these disputes which is fair, bearing in mind people have been acting on perceptions of ownership which have gone back for many years.

Time expired.

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