Law firm ‘botched unit buy’

A MOTOR mechanic is suing a Gold Coast law firm for allegedly botching the purchase of an industrial unit at Burleigh.

Richard Adrian Miller filed a $165,225 lawsuit against Broadbeach Law Group this month claiming he hired it to check if he could run a motorcycle mechanic business from the unit.

He bought the unit for $340,000 in May last year but what he didn’t know was that running a motorcycle workshop was banned in the Burleight Heads complex.

He had closed up his Canberra business and was relocating to the Gold Coast.

“Our client was left with a property which was useless to him and had to put it back on the market immediately and find another suitable property,” Attwood Marshall commercial litigation solicitor Charles Lethbridge said.

Court documents filed on behalf of Mr Miller at South- port District Court claim he had a clause in his contract which allowed him to back out of the sale if body corporate laws stopped him from running his business.

The claim states Broadbeach Law Group received the body corporate by-laws on May 18 which stated that a unit could not be used for a motor mechanic business.

However, Mr Miller alleges that one day later the lawyers told him to waive the clause in the contract that allowed him to back out of the sale if the body corporate didn’t allow him to operate his business there. It was allegedly two months later that Broadbeach Law Group told Mr Miller the bad news.

“(Broadbeach Law Group) told (Mr Miller) that they had only just received the community management statement the previous day (July 6)... ,” the claim reads.

Broadbeach Law Group did not comment because the senior partner was away.