A Mill Park man has been ordered to pay back a $32,000 first-home owner grant after he was found not to have lived at the property he purchased for the required period of six months.
In a hearing at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Paul Said, 25, was ordered to repay a first-home owner grant of $32,000 as well as a penalty of $3200 after utility bills revealed a prolonged period when no water was used at the Woodstock Drive, Doreen, property he purchased six years ago.
To be eligible for a first-home owner grant, an applicant must occupy the property as their principal place of residence for a continuous period of at least six months within the 12-month period immediately after an occupancy permit has been issued.
Mr Said bought the property, which was then a vacant block, for $150,000 in September, 2009. He applied for the grant the following month, which was approved and paid.
He then employed a builder, who built the house, and was issued an occupancy permit on April 23, 2012.
At the hearing, VCAT senior member Robert Davis said April 23 was the beginning of the 12-month period Mr Said was required to live at the house.
But this was contested by Mr Said, who said it did not begin until July 27 when he returned from a trip to China.
But on re-entering the country, he gave his parents’ house in Mill Park as his address on a re-entry form.
Utility accounts were also still being addressed to his parents’ house until late 2012, and from May 14 until August 16 that year there was no water used at all at the Doreen address.
Mr Davis said it was difficult to accept that Mr Said could have been living at the property.
“He did have a water tank, but even with a water tank one would have expected he needed water use for drinking and the toilet and the occasional shower,” he said.
“The evidence suggests to me that in fact the applicant [Mr Said] did not abandon his parents’ home.”
