Four Properties I Proudly Walked Away From - #3

#3: Owners Corporation: A Dangerous Liaison

It’s exciting when you find an apartment or townhouse that ticks all the boxes. The design, the location, the accommodation — and somehow, it’s within budget. You start imagining where the furniture will go and how life would look once you’ve moved in. Then comes the owners corporation paperwork.

A few red flags, but nothing’s perfect, right? And the agent says the owners corporation is really active and on top of everything. But at what point are we simply talking ourselves into something we should be walking away from?

Recently, my clients and I found ourselves in exactly this position. The contract wasn’t available yet, but we loved the property enough to start doing our homework. We’d worked through the numbers, considered our likely competition and discussed the strategy to secure the keys. We’d even spoken with other professionals about potential improvements, their cost and the value they might add. My clients were even sending me ChatGPT mock-ups showing where their furniture would go. In short, we’d almost moved in.

Then the paperwork arrived. The owners corporation certificate raised questions, but it was the general business section of the meeting minutes that really made me uncomfortable. I’ll be honest: even I caught myself wondering whether there might be a way to make it work - that’s how easily it happens. Once you’ve become attached, you can start looking for reasons to excuse the problems rather than properly considering what they mean.

I explained my concerns to my clients and began investigating further with the owner's corporation manager and selling agent. Those questions deserved answers, but my clients also needed time to absorb what we’d found. They had pictured their life there. A few pages of meeting minutes had just put that entire picture into question.

Over the following days, we worked through the concerns and allowed the emotional attachment to settle. Eventually, my clients reached the decision: this wasn’t a property they were comfortable buying.

Having guided buyers through similar situations before, I knew that understanding a problem and feeling ready to walk away don’t always happen at the same time. My role was to keep the risks clear while helping them through that process. The property still had everything that had first attracted us. But we now understood more about what buying it would involve — beyond the front door. Assurances that the owners corporation was “on top of everything” couldn’t out weigh what the paperwork was telling us.

This was our dangerous liaison: a property we loved, with owner's corporation concerns we couldn’t justify accepting.

Walking away was a tough pill to swallow. But it was the right move.

Sometimes, the most valuable work I do is helping my clients leave the keys behind.

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