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Together with his wife and son, a Sydney lawyer was accused, but later acquitted, of allegedly obtaining a Glebe property by deception.
Peter Colquhoun, former principal of Colquhoun & Colquhoun, was charged alongside his wife Margaret and son Andrew with obtaining a Glebe property by deception under the law of adverse possession.
The law, colloquially known as “squatter’s rights”, allows a person to claim ownership of land, provided they can prove uninterrupted and exclusive possession – without owner’s consent – for at least 12 years.
Margaret and Andrew were both found guilty of fraud in the NSW District Court. Peter, whose charge relied on the unsuccessful argument of a joint criminal enterprise, was found not guilty.
The property was originally owned by Ansis Neilands, who died in 1995 and left the property to his sister – or, in the event of her death, her sons – via an informal holographic will, which is entirely handwritten and signed and does not require a witness signature.
Up until his death, neighbours Alex and Rosalia Huszti provided daily meals and care to Neilands. They then assisted in the futile search for his beneficiaries up until their own deaths in 2002.
The year following Neilands’ death, Mr Huszti requested Peter’s help with letters of administration from the NSW Supreme Court that would allow him to manage and distribute the estate as a creditor.
It was not in dispute that Peter’s firm searched for the beneficiaries, including by hiring private investigation firms in the United States.
Between 1997 and 2002, the Glebe property was rented out, and those funds were used to reimburse the firm for its work on the estate.
The property was then renovated in 2003, and new tenants moved in.
In a statutory declaration in November 2013, Margaret claimed she and Andrew had been in possession of the property since 2000 and falsely asserted it appeared to be “abandoned” at that time.
Andrew’s statutory declaration mirrored his mother’s.
The Crown alleged that the claim that they were in possession since 2000 was false because the property had been tenanted, and it was not until three years later that Margaret engaged in acts of ownership.
It also alleged that in 2003, Peter, and potentially Margaret, hatched a plan to obtain the property by means of the doctrine of adverse possession, having had knowledge at that time that they could succeed if they could establish physical control for 12 years.
However, Judge Alister Abadee was unconvinced that Margaret and Peter had come up with the allegedly dishonest ploy in 2003.
“It is a large thing to say that an agreement could be reached in 2003 when the agreement depended upon the circumstances of a third party – here a government agency – would be deceived nearly 12 years down the line,” Judge Abadee said in his written reasons.
The deceptions were instead perpetrated from November 2013.
Judge Abadee said it was unnecessary to determine whether, as at July 2013, the enterprise to obtain the property was tainted from inception because Peter had allegedly “conducted himself unprofessionally or in breach of his duties as a solicitor”, or deprived the state of NSW of a potential beneficial interest in order to create a personal interest.
“Further, for any such conduct to have meaningful significance for the purpose of establishing a criminal enterprise between [Peter] and [Margaret], it would be much more convincingly demonstrated if it could be shown that [Margaret] had some appreciation of the asserted wrongfulness of what [Peter] had earlier done to set up the opportunity for her to later exploit,” Judge Abadee said.
Judge Abadee had found Margaret sought to minimise Peter’s role and involvement in her pursuit of the claim to the title, but it was “another step, which I doubt I can take”, to find it was because of her awareness of Peter’s past efforts prior to July 2013.
“I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt as to the extent of her knowledge of [Peter’s] involvement, including what he did and did not do when acting for Mr Huszti,” the judge said.
“Suspicion is not a substitute for proof.”
Judge Abadee was not satisfied that it could be established beyond reasonable doubt that the dishonest conduct commenced in 2003.
As a result, the case against Peter must fail.
Citation: R v Colquhoun; R v Colquhoun; R v Colquhoun [2026] NSWDC 198.
