A lawyer and real estate agent who already owned a $7million dollar home has been ordered to vacate a separate property she had been trying to claim via squatter’s rights.
Mary Willis filed a lawsuit against Yael Abraham, who had secretly been squatting at two Rozelle homes in inner-city Sydney that Ms Willis had inherited from her father decades earlier.
Ms Abraham claimed to have been living in the properties since 2011, which would have given her claim to ownership under NSW adverse possession laws.
Also known as ‘squatter’s rights’, the law states anyone who occupies an abandoned house for at least 12 years without force or secrecy can inherit the property.
The lawsuit was initially filed to the NSW Supreme Court in 2023 and Ms Abraham eventually dropped her challenges of ownership to one of the homes last year.
She pressed on with her fight to keep the second house however, which was settled by Acting Justice Michael Elkaim, who recently ruled in Ms Willis’s favour.
Justice Elkaim took issue with Ms Abraham’s timeline of events and was skeptical about her claims that she had lived in the home since 2011.
He also ruled that Ms Abraham failed to make her presence in the property ‘visible’ and that until recently, her occupation had been more of a secret.
Yael Abraham (pictured) has had her claim of adverse possession on a inner-city Sydney home tossed out by a NSW Supreme Court judge
Ms Abraham, who works as a lawyer and real estate agent in Queensland, initially heard about the abandoned properties via a tip-off from her brother, which she visited in late 2009, the court heard.
She promptly began storing furniture and other items at one of the Rozelle homes after she and her family moved to the area in 2011.
Justice Elkaim did not agree with Ms Abraham’s claim that she had properly occupied the house as she only visited it once a month at most to begin cleaning it.
Lockable doors were installed by Ms Abraham but a broken window at the front of the house remained unrepaired for years.
Despite cleaning the home and installing new doors, Justice Elkaim ruled that Ms Abraham using the property ‘as a storeroom does not substantiate … adverse possession’, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.
Any claim of adverse possession meets strict requirements, which dictate that the property had been used exclusively ‘as a residence’ during the 12-year period.
The house did not even have a functioning toilet until Ms Abraham’s eldest child moved into the property full-time in 2016.
The offspring had only been living in the home part-time in the four years prior.
Ms Abraham told the court she had been occupying two Rozelle homes (suburb pictured) since 2011. She dropped her claim of squatter’s rights over one of the properties.
This revelation alone quashed Ms Abraham’s claim of squatter’s rights, the judge ruled.
As she or her family had only been provably occupying the property since 2016, that meant the 12-year limitation period had not yet expired, he said.
The judge also took issue with the fact that Ms Abraham had seemingly occupied the property in secrecy, which was adverse to the law which stated she had to have openly and visibly lived at the property.
‘[Ms Abraham], deliberately, took no action to display her occupation to the outside world until much later [than 2011],’ Justice Elkaim said.
‘The front windows were never mended, and the roof was only repaired in the last five years.
‘In other words, to the passerby, the appearance of occupation was not apparent.’
Acting Justice Michael Elkaim ruled that Yael Abraham (pictured) had not met the standards for her adverse possession claim
Ms Abraham’s lawyer told the court that she had “tried to contact and let this lady know that she was living in the property” and that Ms Willis “gave us the keys; in am email sent to an agent in 2023.
Justice Elkaim ruled in Ms Willis’ favor as the evidence indicated Ms Abraham’s occupancy was a ‘possession continued by stealth’.
Ms Abraham is the principal of Assetnet Properties, which ‘purchases, sells, renovates and builds property throughout Queensland and NSW’, according to the company’s website.
She is described on her own website as ‘a lawyer and activist for children’s and animal rights’.
Ms Abraham also featured on ABC’s Australian Story in 2009 for her work as a foster carer.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Yael Abraham for comment.
