Featured Image Credit: Domain Residential Northern Beaches/Supplied
A real estate agent accidentally burned down the house that she had been helping to sell.
Estate agent Julie Bundock had been overseeing the sale of the multi-million dollar property in a Sydney suburb in May 2019.
During a visit to the property, she noticed that some of the current tenants in the house had left some bedsheets out to dry on the deck.
Bundock took the sheets and threw them onto a downstairs shelf.
But little did she know that the shelf was below an electric light, which Bundock then switched on.
A large fire broke in the house around 20 minutes later, which is believed to have started as a result of the shelf and bed sheets heating up and catching fire from the wall-mounted light.
The entire house, which was worth around AU $3 million (about US $1.96 million), went up in flames, destroying both the house and the contents.
Fortunately, no one was injured in the blaze which consumed the entire house.
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The house’s owner Peter Alan Bush had been getting the house ready to sell, and took the matter to court.
In court, Mr. Bush claimed that Ms. Bundock had said words to the effect of: “Oh my God Pete, I think I have burnt down your house.”
She allegedly said: “I had been doing some tidying up. I collected some sheets drying on the veranda and threw them on top of a freestanding metal shelving in the bedroom under the stairs.
“I just threw them there Pete, right up against the light on the wall. I think that’s what started the fire.”
Chief Judge in Equity Justice David Hammerschlag ruled that Bundock ‘actively created the risk of fire and the consequent harm’.
Judge Hammerschlag ordered Ms. Bundock’s employer, Domain Residential Northern Beaches, to pay AU $740,642 to Mr. Bush, and a combined $121,475 to the tenants Elise Coulter, Reggie Songaila, Lauren Coulter, and Ella Eagle.
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While giving his decision, he stated: “That a fire might be caused by putting or throwing bedding up against a burning light is obvious.
“That risk was plainly foreseeable, and Bundock ought to have known this.”
He added that Ms. Bundock had been an ‘aggressive and uncooperative witness’ in court, saying: “Her evidence was clearly coloured by a heightened awareness that she had caused the catastrophe.”
Domain Residential Northern Beaches had tried to argue that there was some culpability for Mr. Bush and the four tenants, as they had not informed the agency that the shelf would heat up as a result of the light.
Judge Hammerschlag rejected this suggestion.
Topics: News, World News, Australia
