The burning to the ground of a prestige home during the course of an open house buyer inspection must be every real estate agent’s worst nightmare.
Peter Bush had appointed Domain Residential to market his spacious two-story residence that commanded spectacular water views at Avalon in Sydney’s northern beaches, in April 2019.
Domain sales executive Julie Bundock was charged with supervising an open house on the last Saturday in May in advance of an auction scheduled the following week.
She had opened up the home on at least four earlier occasions and as usual, had arranged for the four tenant occupants to be away for the duration of the morning’s inspection.
To enhance presentation, the agent removed two bedsheets hanging on a makeshift clothesline on the front deck and placed (or perhaps threw) them on to a shelf in a downstairs bedroom.
The shelf was about 20cm below a wall light that she switched on as she left the room and closed the bedroom door.
The home erupted in flames about 20 minutes later, just as the first would-be buyers began to walk through the front door.
Devastated by the calamity, Bush sued the agency for his loss. The tenants did likewise for the value of their destroyed belongings.
They contended that the blaze was caused by the heat generated by the wall light igniting the bedding Bundock had tossed on the shelf.
The sole issue for determination when the lawsuits came before the NSW Supreme Court was the cause of the fire.
Bundock had lamented at the scene “I think that’s what started the fire” by throwing the sheets on a shelf in the bottom bedroom up against a light.
But when giving testimony she claimed she had carefully “draped [the sheets] over the front and around the sides of the shelf”.
Justice David Hammerschlag was not impressed. “Her denials that she did what she is reported to have done, are untruthful,” he wrote in the 16-page judgment.
But had the sheets been ignited by the heat of the light?
Bush relied on the testimony of Phillip Glover – a career firefighter and fire investigator –that the probable origin of the fire was the bedding which had been put so close to the wall light.
On the other hand, Domain’s expert – chartered chemist Peter Jeffrey who held qualifications in forensic science – argued that any conclusion the fire was started by the bedsheets was unsupported by evidence.
He asserted Glover’s conclusion was inconsistent with accepted forensic methodology and was at best, a mere suspicion. The fact that the fire occurred after the bedding was thrown near the light was a mere coincidence – he reasoned – and its cause must be considered “undetermined”.
The judge considered the coincidence contention “fanciful” and without having to rely on Glover’s opinion, ruled the factual evidence sufficient to establish the agent’s actions “were the probable (if not the certain) cause of the fire”.
Judgement was entered against Domain Residential Northern Beaches Pty Limited in favour of the tenants for $120,000 and for Bush in the sum of $741,000. Bundock was not named personally as a defendant.
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