Almost two years after his house was nearly wrongly sold by court order in a case of mistaken identity, Robert Mitrevski hopes he has finally achieved justice.
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Mr Mitrevski said he had spoken last month with the NSW Ombudsman’s Office, which had alerted him to the existence of a Torrens Assurance Fund, which exists to compensate people who lose title to their property.
‘‘One of the reasons the fund is there for is to compensate people who get into trouble because of mistakes in the Land Titles Office,’’ Mr Mitrevski said.
‘‘The Ombudsman said it was open and shut and when I spoke to the head legal officer at the lands department and a fraud investigator at the department they told me the same thing. I was 99per cent sure to get compensation because the Lands Title Office put my house on a list of properties owned by someone else with the same name, and who was involved in a court case with someone else that had nothing to do with me.’’
Mr Mitrevski was angry at the Department of Lands, the Attorney-General’s Department and Charlestown MP Matthew Morris – none of whom had alerted him to the Torrens fund.
Mr Morris said he had never heard of the Torrens Assurance Fund and could not be expected to know the name and use of every piece of state legislation.
Asked whether the two departments he wrote to on behalf of Mr Mitrevski should have known, he said: ‘‘That’s a matter for them to answer.’’
But he said Mr Mitrevski should not be angry with him because he had tried his hardest to help, as he did with every constituent who came to him.
Despite the conversations Mr Mitrevski had with lands department officials, a spokesman for Lands Minister Tony Kelly said Mr Mitrevski had been invited to apply for compensation but he had not been told he was ‘‘eligible’’.
‘‘The Land and Property Management Authority was not responsible for Mr Mitrevski’s situation which arose when a writ was placed on his land by individuals who clearly did not take appropriate steps to verify that the land was owned by a debtor of the same name,’’ Mr Kelly’s spokesman said.
Mr Mitrevski said it was the lands department’s role to ensure that it gave the family in the court case – the Bakovskis – the right list of properties when they applied to the department for a list of assets owned by the other Robert Mitrevski.
‘‘How can they say it’s not their mistake and that they aren’t responsible?’’ Mr Mitrevski said.
