Rosa Rossi's colourful history before relying an adverse possession scam was not detected why the force, allowing her to identify vacant properties, change the locks and install tenants.
Use of adverse possession - one of those areas of real property law that entertain students and academics alike - featured in McFarland v Gertos [2018] NSWSC 1629, discussed here. Rossi's scam was distinctly less pleasant.
The ABC's report states that the Court was told Rossi
had researched the legalities of "adverse possession" — otherwise known as squatters' rights — where if a person acts as if the property is theirs for 15 years it becomes theirs.
"It is an oblique area of the law, hardly known, hardly traversed," Mr Pickering told the court. "Ms Rossi was using dishonest means in what she saw was a legitimate end."Views might differ on her sense of legitimacy.
The charges relate to her activities between April 2016 to June 2017, where she targeted six properties. Three were in the Melbourne suburbs of Chadstone, Brooklyn and Malvern and the others were in the town of Willaura, south of Ararat.
The court heard her offending started out small and involved inexpensive properties in Willaura worth $50,000 and $108,500. But then she targeted properties that were worth considerably more, including a Malvern house worth almost $1 million. ...
Rossi lied to tenants and councils The court heard Rossi did property searches to find out who owned the properties. She set up a company called Sweet Georgia Pty Ltd, which was used to advertise for tenants, and engaged a property management company.
The court heard police were called to one of the properties after neighbours reported suspicious activity. Rossi told the officers not to worry because she was a police sergeant. "It shows a certain ruthlessness that when confronted by police this was the kind of ruthlessness she was prepared to use," Mr Pickering told the court. ...
The court was told Rossi falsely filled out statutory declarations claiming she acted for the real owners in changing addresses with water and power companies and local councils. On one occasion she visited the Hobson's Bay Council dressed in her police uniform, seeking details of a property owner. She also went to Australia Post to seek mail redirections, so the real owners would not twig to the scam.
Rossi told one of her tenants to lie to Centrelink about her living arrangements with her partner, in order to pay Rossi rent on one of the scammed properties. Tenants in the Chadstone property were told the original owners of the house they rented had been deported from the country and the assets seized.The owners had not abandoned the properties and were unsurprisingly unhappy to find tenants in possession.
