Telephone:  02  9601 7900

Address:     Suite 1, 16 Norfolk Street, Liverpool  NSW  2170

Land Acquisition by a

NSW Government Authority

Are you affected?

NSW authorities buy or acquire land from private owners for a number of community reasons. These can include, for example, to provide for parks, road widening, schools, new road and other transport corridors. A recent local example is the compulsory acquisition of land from several land owners in the Glenfield, Edmundson Park and Leppington for the South West Rail Link.

Usually properties for such purposes are designated, earmarked or appropriately zoned, a long time before actually required for the intended ultimate public purpose – sometimes even years.

The state authorities (for example, local councils, the RTA, or the NSW Department of Planning) normally aim to negotiate a purchase of the required land. Qualified valuers and the Valuer General’s office are used to determine the market value. The valuation process is supposed to ignore that the land is to be used for a public purpose as if the planning proposal didn’t happen.

What happens if your land is proposed to be acquired and you don’t want to sell? Well, there’s not much you can do if there exists a statutory power for the authority to acquire the land. Councils, for example, under the Local Government Act 1993 have the power to acquire land for the purpose of exercising any of the council’s functions. Similarly, under the Roads Act 1993, the RTA, Minister or a council, may acquire land for any of the purposes of that Act.

There is, however, a formal process under the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act (JTCA) that must be undertaken where land is to be compulsorily acquired. That process includes the provision of formal notices, and what happens if the landowner does not agree with the proposed compensation offered.

Where land is to be compulsorily acquired, the authority will issue to the landowner a Proposed Acquisition Notice (PAN). A PAN extinguishes the landowner’s interest in the subject land, or part of the land to be acquired, and converts that interest into a claim for compensation.

The JTCA sets out the time limits that apply for the acquiring of the land once a PAN issues, the making and/or acceptances of offers, and where there’s agreement, the time for payment.

Ultimately, if the amount offered by the authority is disputed, the landowner has the right to have the compensation amount determined by the Court. Landowners are entitled to submit their own valuations and other evidence in the process.

In some cases, a landowner can require a state authority to acquire the land. Usually this can happen where the land is designated exclusively for a public purpose, and the landowner shows that they would otherwise suffer hardship (for example, paying crippling interest on a loan used to purchase the land, but the land now cannot be sold or gainfully used because it’s permitted use has been changed).

Other rights exist where the property to be acquired includes the residence of the landowner, such the right to occupy the acquired land for a short period in some limited circumstances.

We’ve seen cases of persons affected by compulsory acquisition of their land not understanding or been bamboozled by the process, not realising or taking advantage of the options available, or believing that they could not test or increase the compensation first offered.

Are you a landowner in NSW affected by a proposed acquisition of your property by a NSW authority? Or perhaps do you want to know whether you can make a NSW authority acquire your land? Contact us for more information and to see if we can help you.
 

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