Crooks discovered and they sic the Council & Water Authority dogs onto me.
In April 1982 Buchanan left his little cesspool untended and went on a holiday to Japan, at that serendipitous time a Gentleman by the name of C. K. Lim walked into the office of WHRD and enquired as to whether WHRD wished to purchase a Woodleigh Heights block which he claimed to own. The other Directors of WHRD were surprised by this and agreed to purchase and on this occasion, while Buchanan was not present to ensure the corrupt lawyers PS&R acted, WHRD decided to use one of its own directors, Ken Faulkner, who was also a solicitor to complete the purchase. Faulkner did a title search and discovered that Lim did not own any land at all, the block which he thought he owned was subject to a caveat noting my purchase of it and AGC’s interest as assignee of the Contract of Sale which included that allotment, the caveat also disclosed that Lot 28 was subject to the same contract to me yet WHRD had purchased Lot 28 by contract dated 12th August 1981 and WHRD had taken title on 16th December 1981.
Faulkner immediately contacted me and sought my comment, he and I then did an exchange of documents evincing both sides of this surprise.
The documents disclose that Ken Buchanan purported to sell Lot 10 to C. K. Lim on 1st October 1980 and purported to transfer possession to him on 1st February 1981 and PS&R had acted for both Lim and Buchanan in that sale and PS&R filed a Notice of Disposition with the Council on 23rd January 1981 and from about that time the Council rated Lot 10 twice, once in the name of Lim and again in the name of WHRD. So poor Mr. Lim did not own any land at all but the helpful Council was rating him on it and they were also rating WHRD on it, he had been well and truly defrauded by Buchanan & PS&R. How this dilemma was resolved is interesting but not immediately pertinent, Mr. Lim never became aware that he had been defrauded, I shall explain at the end of the Book. Of immediate pertinence however is that fact that PS&R and Buchanan had sold both lot 10 and lot 28 twice and Buchanan had been paid twice for each lot. (in short it was resolved by a Transfer by direction whereby WHRD paid Lim and Buchanan transferred lot 26 to WHRD in consideration)
Buchanan had in fact sold my lot 28 to WHRD by vendor terms contract dated 12th August 1981 and PS&R acted for both Buchanan and WHRD in that sale while knowing full well that it remained subject to the contract which had been assigned to GCL/AGC.
The transfer of Land dated 16th December 1981 which transfers Lot 28 along with others to WHRD is noted that some of the Titles in that transfer issue to General Credits Limited. On the face of it General Credits Limited, at least in part, financed the sale which included my lot 28.
Bill McLean of GCL/AGC had executed a partial withdrawal of caveat dated 16th December 1981 which removed the caveat from Lot 28 thereby facilitating the sale of my Lot 28 to WHRD while McLean was thoroughly aware it remained subject to the contract of sale to me which had been assigned to GCL.
Discovering all this took a little time, by about the end of April and before Buchanan arrived back from Japan I knew it all, I telephoned Bill McLean of AGC and informed him that I knew where the missing title was and on about the 1st week of May I confronted Graeme Bolton of PS&R and told him I was referring the matter to police.
Ring in the preliminary round. As was the case when I was trying to sell the Woodleigh Heights land the Council and Water Authority stepped into the breach well so it was also the case on this preliminary occasion. I had advised PS&R that their corrupt practices were known and that the Police would be advised.
Within 7 days of me confronting PS&R, Stan Porter, the joint secretary of the Council and Water Authority wrote to me by letter dated 12th May 1982 in relation to the Tylden Rd residential land and said that Council was concerned that the works had not been done, from the rate records at least two of the lots have been sold and that the owners had inquired of Council as to when the works will be completed, it is considered that the water mains be laid forthwith and the road works commenced immediately.
The transparent reality was that Porter was jumping to his corrupt friends’ assistance and simply lying, it never was and never could be my obligation to do the work but the fact, as I then understood it, remained, I had guaranteed Buchanan whom by then I knew to be a crook and he had not done the works. I subsequently contacted the other owners, Messrs Ross and Lance Nicholls and they had not inquired or complained, they subsequently gave evidence to that effect under oath in the Magistrates Court at Bendigo but that aspect relates to the perjury and falsification of documents and corruption in the courts which I shall describe a little later. The Councillors and Water Authority members of course simply danced to Porter’s tune, he set the agenda’s and made the recommendations in relation to the nuts and bolts affairs and this was just one such affair. There was no resolution of the Council to send the letter of 12th May 1982, Porter did that of his own volition and then set the Council’s agendas thereafter. The Water Authority sent a similar letter dated 4th June 1982, also signed by Porter.
At the time of writing his letter of 4th June 1982 Porter and the Water Authority knew full well that initially it was the Water Authority’s responsibility to do the water works and to invoice Buchanan for those works once complete and my bank guarantee was a surety available to the Water Authority in the case of Buchanan’s default on that payment. The evidence as to Porters knowledge of these things is contained in a number of places including a 1979 Water Authority Minute and a letter dated 7th May 1981 signed by Porter. Porters letter discloses that Buchanan and Porter were appointed to meet in the Shire offices on 21st May 1981, one of the purposes of that meeting was to advise Buchanan of the costs for the Water Authority to lay the mains to the Tylden Rd subdivision and the industrial subdivision pursuant to a Water Supply Agreement between Buchanan and the Water Authority but more on this aspect later.
On the face of it, when they fraudulently sold my lot 28 to WHRD PS&R, Buchanan and Bill McLean of GCL/AGC had what they thought to be an infallible plan, Buchanan had an option over the Woodleigh Heights land, I could not sell to anyone else, AGC had refused to refinance, they expected me to default on the contract which was assigned to GCL/AGC, had I defaulted the sale of Lot 28 by McLean, Buchanan and PS&R would have gone entirely unnoticed by me and WHRD. In relation to this aspect it is significant that solicitors Wardlaw Burns & Co, under instruction from Buchanan, wrote to GCL by letters dated 2nd September 1982, 5th October 1982 and 4th February 1983 insisting that GCL enforce the terms of the Contract of Sale. As is obvious, because lot 28 was gone GCL/AGC could not settle the contract with me so there was no way that GCL/AGC could comply with or enforce the contract, other than on my default. Manifestly Buchanan knew AGC could not settle, he had sold lot 28 to WHRD so it was all a charade. It may be that they had a plan B, namely for Buchanan to go through the motions of purchasing Lot 28 from me with PS&R acting for both sides but plans A to Z were foiled when C. K. Lim came on the scene when Buchanan was away from his cesspit. (there is no evidence that Wardlaw Burns were involved in any way other than acting on Buchanan’s dishonest instructions and I hold no suspicions in that regard. Notably Buchanan did not use PS&R because AGC’s Bill McLean had provided the partial withdrawal of caveat to PS&R and PS&R had acted in the outright fraudulent sale of Lot 28, there is a limit to what even a fraudster can do before becoming just too extreme.).
I referred the matter of the sale of Lot 28 to the police, I attended the Epping CIB behind the Police Station and the Detective told me that it was a civil matter. I engaged a Collins Street lawyer to act for me but after a couple of their bills together with monstrous barristers fees I was unable to pay them, they held my file and documents in escrow until I paid their fees, I was stymied, AGC and I were locked together, AGC could not perform under the contract and I could not refinance to settle a contract which the vendor, AGC, could not perform. Except for saying that Buchanan subjected myself and my family to threats of violence and Bill McLean assaulted a friend of mine how that impasse was resolved is interesting but does not add to the panorama of corruption which I am painting here so I will explain later.
Porter’s puppets, the Councillors and Water Authority members, went on to resolve to call upon my Bank Guarantees and I had to raise the cash on the overnight money market and interest rates at that time were extreme, as high as 22%, the load got very high.
The Council and Water Authority were not ready to and had no immediate intention of carrying out the works when they called on my Bank Guarantees. Unbeknown to me but demonstrably known to Porter and each and every Water Authority Member which includes a number of Councillors was the fact that the land was in an area where it was unlawful for the Water Authority to provide water to any land except pursuant to a Water Supply Agreement between the owner of the land and the Water Authority and in this case, as I demonstrate below, the Agreement was with Buchanan, not me, and there was no possible grounds for the Water Authority’s demand that I do the work, I had merely guaranteed Buchanan’s performance of the terms of that Water Supply Agreement which was for him to pay to the Water Authority the costs of the works once they had been completed. but on the face of it, in the circumstances which existed, Porter and Wilson and perhaps others in the Council and Water Authority decided to dishonestly represent that I was liable to do the work and then call upon my Bank Guarantees when I did not do the work. Buchanan and PS&R were manifestly aware of what was occurring and it suited their particular agenda which was to secure my default with AGC in the hope of sweeping their dirty little fraudulent land deals under the carpet. The Bank Guarantee called up by the Water Authority was for the sum of $11,500, the costs of the water works subsequently unlawfully done by them was $6,658.71. The Water Authority then simply kept the balance of $4,841.29 refundable to me and dishonestly retained it to its own use and benefit. Back then 4.8K was a lot of money. In addition the Council also had no lawful entitlement to either hold my guarantees in the first place or to call on the Bank Guarantee or construct the roads but I will explain that a little later in relation to corruption in the courts where I will demonstrate that in order to deny and conceal their dirty little deeds the Council and Water Authority indulged in perjury, falsification of documents, incomplete and deceptive discovery, and false pleadings in the courts with more than just a little help from a chain of dishonest lawyers who made false and deceptive submissions to the Courts and then in turn the Supreme Court itself got involved, the effect of which was to ignore deny and conceal the dirty little deed of the chain of deceptive or negligent lawyers. Little did the Council and Water Board suspect the monster they had unleashed when they first indulged in, as compared to gravity of the monster they unleashed, a little skulduggery. The Council and Water Authority plainly thought that they would call up my guarantees and that would be that.