We bought our dream home for £670,000 – but five years on we’ve been booted out for a very unfair reason
A FAMILY has been devastated after being forced to move out of their dream home – after discovering it was never actually theirs.
Jess and Jacqueline Morecroft lived in the gorgeous home for five years before a legality meant they had to move out.
The couple had raised their two daughters in the three-bedroom Gold Coast home, until a previous owner sued the family in 2018 after their relative fraudulently mortgaged the property in her name.
Mr Morecroft said: “We got sued by the previous owner.
“We found out the previous owner was alleging fraud and said her son mortgaged her property in her name without her consent.
“You can’t plan anything really. We had paid all this money, but we never had it in our name, so we couldn’t use it as security for anything.”
In February when court ruled the Morecrofts were owed £1.4million after being forced to move out due to the legality.
But the family is now left without their dream home, and have been dealt a horrible financial blow.
The court ruling read: “The state is liable to compensate the purchasers as they have been deprived of their equitable interest in the property because of the fraud of another person.”
The Morecrofts already paid over £160k in legal fees, and were horrified after the Queensland government appealed the Supreme Court‘s decision – meaning they may not get a dime back of what they paid.
Now, the home has been resold in an auction by the previous owner, which has upset the couple more.
The couple said: “In five years, we will have gone from owning a house outright and having money in the bank to being robbed of absolutely everything we have worked for our entire working lives.
“As innocent victims caught up in this horrible situation, we were granted compensation by the court.
“However, the Queensland government has chosen to appeal the decision, claiming that we do not qualify for compensation as we were never the registered property owners and are not direct victims of fraud.”
Another Aussie couple’s dream home became a nightmare after the council let their neighbour build a mansion only 40cm from theirs.
Kathy Morin and Devon Matsalla are assembling a house in Queensland, Australia, but say builders can no longer put up scaffolding to complete it.
The pair say the entire project has ground to a halt – leaving them “heartbroken” as they pumped all their money into the build.
Ms Morin told A Current Affair: “If it was a couple of centimetres we wouldn’t be having this conversation but it’s preventing us from building our house, like that’s big, it’s not aesthetics.
“We’ve put in all our money we’ve put in all the time, we’ve been waiting a long time.”
Mr Matsalla says they have filed a complaint with Gold Coast City Council as they fail to understand why permission was granted for another home to be built within touching distance.