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A sense that something was awry spurred Lisa Woodall to drive past her late parents’ house.
The western suburbs property had been on the market for months. After a sale campaign beset by delays and failed offers, she finally had another buyer.
Still, the last thing Woodall expected was to discover someone had already taken possession. A ladder was propped against a broken window and extensive renovation works had begun.
Woodall put the buyer’s name into Google, hoping to find out more about the person she claims was behind the secret works taking place.
The man was no stranger to the industry. It was Robert Krnjeta, then director of Ray White’s top sales office in Victoria, Ray White Werribee.
“I was furious,” recalled Woodall, an emergency service call taker. “My first thought was, ‘I’m not insured for people to be on the land. If they [the workers] get injured, I’m liable.’”
The case adds to mounting misconduct allegations against Robert Krnjeta in his dealings with home owners selling deceased estates. The 34-year-old recently defected to rival franchise Harcourts amid claims he secretly purchased two properties he was entrusted to sell, and then flipped them for a profit.
This masthead’s investigation has also uncovered another alleged case of a property being illegally accessed and renovated before settlement, this time by Robert’s younger brother, Ray White Werribee director Alex Krnjeta.
“My mum would have hated people being in her house without my permission,” wrote that home’s distressed owner, Rachael O’Dowd, after she visited the property to find internal works occurring and her mother’s filing cabinet in the front yard.
“I hope she haunts that house.”
Lisa Woodall came across Robert Krnjeta in 2024, not as an agent, but as a buyer of her Wyndham Vale home.
Krnjeta had been buying bedraggled brick homes in the neighbourhood, giving them a modern facelift, and then quickly selling them again for a tidy profit.
Woodall had been having a tough time selling her property. People later told her they had never seen an unluckier vendor.
After two failed offers saw the price drop from $350,000 to $320,000, Krnjeta emerged as the third buyer, signing a contract to buy the home in July 2024.
“Maybe I had a feeling,” she said of her decision to visit the house on August 30.
Photos Woodall took during this visit suggest tradespeople had been working on the property for some time. In the backyard, the base of a large wooden deck had been hammered in place, a new sliding door had been fitted and the cut remnants of a large tree lay on the ground.
“I thought, ‘He’s trying to get the house completed before he pays for it,’” Woodall recalled.
George Yacoubian, the agent who oversaw the sale, said he first heard the house had been illegally accessed from Woodall’s conveyancer.
Yacoubian said he immediately called Krnjeta, who told him that he thought it would be OK to start work, given no one lived there. Yacoubian didn’t buy his argument.
“He’s the director of the company. He knows the legalities,” he said.
Yacoubian said he had previously suggested Krnjeta apply for a licence agreement – a legal agreement between the vendor and buyer – when Krnjeta had been in touch and flagged the idea of early access.
“He obviously disregarded that,” Yacoubian said.
After being contacted by this masthead, Robert Krnjeta said he offered his “sincere apologies” to Woodall “for any distress caused”. However, he rejected the characterisation of events put to him.
“I was aware of my obligations in relation to pre-settlement access and took steps in July 2024 to formalise arrangements with the vendor’s representative accordingly,” he said.
When pushed to provide evidence of any formal agreement to access Woodall’s house, Krnjeta declined, saying, “I have nothing to add to my statement.”
Krnjeta also declined to comment on his association with Josh Tesolin, one of the most controversial figures in Australia’s property industry.
Robert Krnjeta recently appeared in an Instagram post dining with Tesolin, once hailed as the country’s top agent, but now facing a raft of allegations of illegal conduct, including more than a hundred cases of underquoting.
It is not clear if Woodall’s complaints ever made their way to Krnjeta’s then colleague and younger brother Alex. If they did, they weren’t heeded as a warning.
Less than a year later, another Wyndham Vale property was illegally accessed and work commenced.
This time the vendor was secondary teacher Rachael O’Dowd, selling her late mother’s home with Ray White Werribee.
The circumstances of that swift sale, as recounted by O’Dowd, are somewhat unusual.
Initially, she was informed that there was a buyer willing to pay $335,000. When a few days later that purchaser pulled out, O’Dowd was told that another agent at the firm, Alex Krnjeta, had offered to step in and buy the home for the same price, along with his wife.
As is legally required, no commission would be required and settlement was scheduled for March 2025.
In late February, O’Dowd visited the house to collect her mother’s mail, only to discover, to her horror, that there was no letter box to check.
It had been wrenched from the front yard, along with much of the vegetation. Her mother’s empty filing cabinet was sitting outside, along with a wall heater. Inside, tradespeople had been busy. Workers had left their ladders, brooms, plasterboard, skirting and buckets behind.
For O’Dowd, the violation was about much more than concerns about insurance and a lack of respect.
For many years before O’Dowd’s mother had died, she had refused to let anyone in the house, even family. Later, cleaners removing waste from the property were forced to wear biohazard suits as they toiled to stop their skin itching.
“[My mother] was such a private person, and with her situation, I thought she’d just be mortified with what’s happened,” she said.
“Alex was happy to just let me pay the electricity and water or whatever else they were using … It was just a mess.”
O’Dowd immediately contacted her conveyancer, who demanded all works cease, but the next day a friend drove past and videotaped continuing works. A ute was in the driveway and a high-vis worker was standing on the roof.
How tradespeople accessed the house is unclear. O’Dowd said she left keys with the selling agent, who denied providing them to Alex Krnjeta.
In texts seen by this masthead, the selling agent claimed he was “fuming” when he found out what happened as he had told Krnjeta to “go through [the] proper channels”.
Property lawyer Freya Southwell said before a settlement is officially complete, or without specific agreements in place, buyers accessing properties are breaking the law.
“That would be trespass,” she said.
Southwell, whose firm Sutton Laurence King Lawyers oversees about 3500 property settlements a year, said builders working on a site without the owner’s permission may also be breaching their legal obligations.
Sometimes a vendor might agree to give a buyer early access through a legal document called a licence agreement.
Southwell said these agreements rarely extended to allowing construction works, as the vendor could be left with incomplete or poor-quality modifications if the sale fell through. Southwell said she would always advise her clients against agreeing to building works for this reason.
Then there was risk the vendor may not be able to make an insurance claim if something were to go wrong.
“[For example], if they didn’t take out a [building] permit, or they hired people who were not completing the works to the requisite safety standards, and there was a fire because of the works, they may have trouble claiming,” Southwell said.
At first, Alex Krnjeta offered O’Dowd a comprehensive apology for his actions, writing in an email on March 5 that he had been “too eager” and commenced work “without the necessary consents”.
“The property was vacant which led to my actions however, this is not to be seen as an excuse,” he wrote. “Reflecting on the matter, I understand how this could have put you in an uncomfortable and possibly stressful position, especially considering the sensitivities involved.”
Krnjeta said as a “gesture of goodwill” that he was willing to cover any conveyancing costs.
The agent’s tone and story changed when O’Dowd replied that while she acknowledged his apology, his offer of compensation was insufficient, and she would also be seeking $10,000 for the “extra stress and loss that I have incurred”.
In an email the next day, Krnjeta said he had “proceeded with the renovations based on my understanding that there was an oral agreement in place” and claimed his actions weren’t a breach of professional conduct.
O’Dowd reached out to multiple senior Ray White staff and explained the situation, but they replied there was nothing more they could do.
“As you are aware, Alex has been sympathetic to the situation and has offered to cover the conveyancing costs,” wrote Michelle Chick, a director at Ray White Werribee, later that month.
“With the written apology aswell [sic] as the costs of covering the conveyancing we feel this is a fair outcome.”
By this point, O’Dowd had signed a licence agreement that officially allowed Krnjeta and his workers access to the house, but told this masthead she had no other choice.
“They were spray-painting the roof with no safety gear and zero insurance on the house at that stage,” she said. “I was so concerned about getting sued for someone getting hurt onsite that I felt pressured to sign a licence agreement in the end.”
O’Dowd said her efforts to get Consumer Affairs to take action also fell on deaf ears. While a staff member from the regulator asked her many questions, they indicated no immediate action would be taken.
“They said, ‘Look, we’re recording this name, and if this name comes up again, something will be done,’” she recalled.
In retrospect, O’Dowd wishes she had immediately called the police.
Alex Krnjeta, 28, now a director of Ray White Werribee, has been previously recognised as one of the top agents in the group and a “rising star”.
When approached by this masthead about the incident, he offered an apology and confessed to allowing workers to enter the property while it was still owned by O’Dowd, though he again provided a slightly different version of events.
“I made a serious mistake,” he wrote in a statement.
“The contract of sale required the vendor to remove rubbish and clean the property prior to settlement, and when I saw that hadn’t been done, I wrongly took it upon myself to authorise tradespeople to enter the property to handle that, without waiting for settlement to occur.”
Ray White Victoria chief executive Domenic Belfiore said he had conducted a review of Ray White Werribee’s internal processes “to ensure that the proper safeguards are firmly in place” and promised there would be no repeat of the incident.
A Consumer Affairs Victoria spokesperson said the regulator did not comment on individuals, businesses or whether investigations were under way.
“We take reports of real estate misconduct seriously and will investigate and take action where necessary.”
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