Foreign buyer crackdown forces Canadians Rob and Ruth Peters to sell their Manly home

Rob and Ruth Peters don’t see themselves as criminals. She is the mother of two home-schooled children and Rob is best known in his Canadian home town as the high-profile oil and gas entrepreneur who co-founded the Peters and Co brokerage in 1971 and owns the Black Diamond Polo Club.

But it seemed fitting to depict the family of four as criminals wearing striped prison garb in a caricature on their recent farewell party invitation given the way they feel the government has portrayed them and other foreigners caught up in the crackdown on foreign property buyers.

Despite appeals by their local MP, Tony Abbott to Treasurer Scott Morrison on their behalf, the Peters family are being forced to sell their Manly home of the past 14 years because they unknowingly bought it in contravention of the rules on foreign investment.

The couple’s apartment, and another they own in the same block, are two of 61 properties slugged with divestment orders since the federal government launched its foreign investment crackdown two years ago.

“There’s the story being portrayed by Treasurer Scott Morrison to the media, and then there’s the human story behind these purchases, and the two are not the same,” Mrs Peters said.

The Peters family bought their two-bedroom apartment in a block of six overlooking Fairy Bower on a leasehold owned by the Catholic Church in 2003 for $1.1 million.

“At that time the issue of the legalities of our purchase was never mentioned by our lawyers or anyone, and we were not aware we were in breach of any rules,” she said.

And there was no mention that there was anything illegal about their $1.5 million purchase of the apartment below five years later.

“It wasn’t until the government went public with its crackdown on foreign buyers that we realised what the rules were and then we came forward as part of the amnesty,” Mrs Peters said.

The federal government’s amnesty ended on November 30, 2015 and the Peters family were issued divestment orders about a year later after an appeal by neighbours, friends and Mr Abbott had failed.

“As a general principle there should be provisions in place for exceptional circumstances,” said a spokesman for Mr Abbott.

But, he added: “The rules are good ones and foreign investors should not be allowed to invest in existing properties without FIRB approval.”

Jake Rowe, of Rowe Partners Real Estate, is asking between $2.75 million and $3 million for the apartment on oceanfront reserve ahead of an April 1 auction.

The second apartment is expected to hit the market as soon as the first is sold.

“We weren’t hunted down, and we weren’t given 90 days to sell up and go,” Mrs Ruth Peters said. “We were given 12 months and there’s been no fine or criminal charges laid against us.”

A spokeswoman for Scott Morrison said the government did not comment on individual cases and so would not comment on the Peters matter.

“The Turnbull government is committed to enforcing our rules so that foreign nationals illegally holding Australian property are identified and their illegal holdings relinquished,” the spokeswoman said.

In February Mr Morrison announced that the ATO had issued a total of 388 penalty notices to foreign nationals worth more than $2 million in penalties.

“We appreciate what the government is trying to do but they’ve missed the boat on this issue,” Mrs Peters said.

“They’ve made it very easy for foreigners to buy as much real estate as they want as long as they have paid for a $5 million [Significant Investment] Visa, even if the buyers are never living here and leave the house empty, but we are living here and contributing to the community we live in, and yet we are being forced out.”