Council responds amid concerns family who refused £25 million offer from developers could be forced to leave home
A family who decided not to sell their home to developers despite being offered a load of money ended up having a plethora of new homes constructed around them.
The Zammit family in Australia have five acres of land, most of which is taken up by their sizeable lawn, and in the middle lies their house, which as you can see looks a smidge out of step with the other homes around it.
While many of their neighbours took buyouts to pack up and move away from the Quakers Hill suburb of Sydney, the Zammits stayed put and rejected an offer of AUS$50 million (about £25 million).
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The family didn't even make a counter-proposal, signalling that they'd rather stay put than sell up for around 50 times the value of the house.
Realising they weren't going to buy the family out, the developer just continued with building houses around the family land and now the home is an island amid a suburban sea.
Although the neighbourhood has changed a lot there are some folks in the area who are quite glad that row after row of suburban housing is punctuated by a big patch of green grass and a house that looks quite different from the rest.
A few local residents have said the Zammits' place actually makes their homes feel nicer to live in as it leaves them feeling like the area is nice and open.
Of course there are some who wonder if perhaps this isn't over and some way might be found to shift the family off their property and make way for dozens of new houses that could earn a developer millions.
Apparently this could be done by council rates, which in Australia is a property tax, as some suspicious sorts claimed that if the council wanted they could crank the rates up and make the property too expensive for the Zammit family to live in.
Owning a valuable home and being able to afford the upkeep are two different things, which is why if you ever win a big house in some kind of prize draw the smart move might be to sell it as soon as you can.
However, it sounds like the Zammit family don't have anything to worry about, as Daily Mail Australia reports that a spokesperson for the local council said there were no designs or intentions on the family home.
The spokesperson for Blacktown City Council said the body 'has no plans to acquire the property and has not had any negotiations to acquire the property'.
"The property rate applied to this property is the same as all surrounding residential properties," they said, so all the people nodding knowingly and saying 'that's how they get you' in worry that this family will be priced out of their home have nothing to fuss over.
Turning down an offer of AUS$50 million is quite a hefty decision, but in the family's defence it looks like a very nice house.
Joe Harker