The federal government's sale of surplus Commonwealth land along the ACT-NSW border has hit a few snags with interested parties discovering a few rude details about the properties.
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There appears to be no public access to some properties while none of the properties advertised have a building entitlement.
The parcels of land are an oddity left over from the creation of the ACT more than a century ago.
Some landholders owned a property that straddled both sides of the border.
Land on the ACT side was ceded to the territory's government while portions on the NSW side remained in Commonwealth ownership.
The federal government proposed the divestment of 16 border "surplus" properties in August.
It was the first tranche in a proposed divestment program of about 40 surplus properties expected to generate $22.5 million in net returns over the forward estimates.
Ray White Tuggeranong real estate agent Peter Campbell-Wood said some of his valuations of the properties were well under the government's valuations.
"In some instances my valuations were quite a lot less because I think [the government's] valuer had assessed them on the basis that they had a building entitlement but it turns out none of them did," he said.
"None of them had building entitlements and most of them had no legal access but I wasn't allowed to put that in the ad.
"I had an awful lot of inquiries from people who wondered what the heck I was doing advertising them when really the general public didn't have access to them and they didn't have building entitlements."
Mr Campbell-Wood said that in at least one case, his estimate was hundreds of thousands of dollars less than government's, which had valued the property at more than twice the price that he believed it was worth.
"Whoever did the valuation must have been given information to suggest it had a building permit because there is no other justification for that figure," he said.
Despite the issues, he believed about two-thirds of the properties would be negotiated as offers either aligned with, or close to, government expectations.
The federal Department of Finance, which is handling the property divestment, did not comment on how many expressions of interest it had received or whether any properties had been withdrawn from the proposal.
A spokeswoman said the department was evaluating the expressions of interest and expected to negotiate with interested parties.
"As this process is still under way we are unable to comment," she said.
