Subsidence Advisory NSW, having made mistakes (whether honestly or by deception) informed us on multiple occasions that there were no mine workings under our properties. This is false. Since then, we believe they have purposely lied & withheld information in order to hide their mistakes.

In 2019, our complaint to Subsidence Authority NSW (SA NSW) was treated as a “Safety & Remediation Report” where they created an internal document saying that there were no mines beneath our properties, no subsidence was seen or reported, and that we had said that the property had water problems since being built. All of this information is false.

Because SA NSW reported the problem as no mines beneath us, for the next 5 years we have been lobbying the Legacy Mines department to review and solve the problem in Mayfield. The theory told to us was that mining finished under Maitland Road, and this mine water was “seeping” into our properties.

In 2020, John Barilaro MP the Minister responsible for Legacy mines, personally visited the sites and immediately commissioned a report into the situation in Mayfield. It found that the entire district is unstable due to historic mining. When Legacy Mines staff requested the mine maps beneath our building, SA NSW purposely withheld mine maps. In doing so, they withheld the fact that mines under Clara and related streets were interconnected with mines under Maitland road, which were then interconnected with mines under our building.

For the next few years, various government ministers used the information from SA NSW that there were no mines under our building, and were not legally responsible to either help us for the mine subsidence problems, or, the mine water coming from government controlled assets (such as the abandoned mines under Maitland Road) into our properties.

We spend thousands of dollars in Freedom of Information (GIPA) requests from multiple agencies, and hire researchers, engineers, lawyers and other experts to help us. What we find in deception within multiple government agencies. When we contact Subsidence Advisory NSW to meet with us, we are rejected and told to place new subsidence claims. These were handled in June 2023.

We also asked to see the georeferenced (current day) mine workings map and were told that we needed to apply to the NSW Resource Regulator. Approval was given to us in July 2023. These maps however are controlled by Subsidence Advisory and then given to the NSW Resource Regulator.

We continuously chase Subsidence Advisory for information on our claims, and, to release the mine map. It has been explained to us that Subsidence Advisory is withholding the mine map from being released to us, even though we have the approvals. It takes Subsidence Advisory 7 months to contact us for a site visit.

We inform them they are very welcomed but they need to show us the georeferenced mine map (the one that has been approved to be released to us) when they visit. They have visited on 3 separate occasions (2012, 2015 and 2019) and told us there were no mine workings. Subsidence Advisory refuse to show us the mine workings map or share any information about their investigation, and cancel their site visit. They later allege that we stop them from conducting a site visit.

After waiting 16 months to receive the approved mine map, in August 2024, Subsidence Advisory email us the mine workings. These mine maps show that our properties are indeed undermined, and, there is direct correlation between the subsidence and water damage on our properties, as well as to our neighbour properties. However, the maps are not complete, and we allege that Subsidence Advisory has purposely removed information from these maps. It’s a serious allegation we will address later.

In October 2024, we have a meeting with Tim Crakanthorp MP, NSW member for Newcastle, to discuss corruption within Subsidence Advisory and potentially with other government agencies. The situation is that for many years, SA NSW has been withholding information and deceiving ourselves, the Minister and other ministers of the true situation in Mayfield. Tim Crakanthorp said he was upset to see this, and told us he would arranging a meeting for us with Minister Anoulack Chanthivong , as well as request a copy of the current georeferenced mine tracing map, and, put a stop on Revenue NSW chasing us for land tax on derelict buildings.

[UPDATE] By May of 2025, Tim Crankanthorp had not arranged a meeting for us with Minister Chanthivong, had not received a georeferenced mine tracing map showing the deception, and Revenue NSW were still chasing us for unpaid land tax. His office called us, and informed that it was our fault that Subsidence Advisory had not conducted their investigation.

Shortly after our meeting with Tim Crakanthorp, we were surprisingly invited to a meeting in October 2024 with the Director of Subsidence Advisory and his team. They still maintain that they don’t know if mining occurred under our properties, even though they provided the geo-referenced mine maps in August 2024. They also rejected our claims that they hampered and withheld documents from the 2020 Legacy Mines investigation (even though the report noted that SA NSW did not provide any information for the investigation). A site inspection is still not handled; instead they want to redo work completed by the Legacy Mines department in 2020, but reject to sit with our geotechnical engineer (the previous Subsidence Advisory Director) to discuss this work.

With various deceptions, our lawyers write to the Secretary of Customer Service and ask for a ruling. After some time it was agreed that Subsidence Advisory conduct an investigation “as expeditiously as possible following the property inspection”. After waiting 8 weeks without any contact from either Subsidence Advisory or the NSW government, we start legal action in the Land & Environment Court.

On the first day of the hearing, the NSW Government does not attend. Their conduct during the proceedings has been so bad, that our lawyers made multiple complaints under the Model Litigant Policy. The Department of Customer Service has ignored all complaints including a request for a meeting to discuss the NSW Government's conduct - our legal team has not received any reply from the first lodgement in August 2025.

The NSW government is still using the 2019 false SA NSW document that is saying that there are no mines beneath our properties. With this, the government through their Valuer General’s office is increasing the land value yearly, and rejecting our evidence. Now, they are chasing us legally for unpaid tax/rates on properties that are not fit for use - 38 Maitland Road has been derelict and unusable for over a decade as acknowledged by their valuer, Knight Frank.