Paddle-boat owner Jim Seears says Land Development Agency drove him to the brink

Such was his distress that he had since got rid of his correspondence with the agency.

"That was an extremely stressing part of my life and I burned most of everything, every bit of communication I had with the LDA and everybody else involved," he said, asked what paperwork he could produce tracing negotiations.

"I burned everything, because I was at the point of suicide at one stage - the way it was being treated by the LDA. I was extremely sick. My wife was in Sydney in hospital, she had a brain tumour. And they were all just laughing at me and treating me like a piece of rubbish, trying to throw me out of the business for nothing."

Mr Seears, who was giving evidence to an ACT parliamentary inquiry into the City to the Lake land deals on Friday, is the second witness to claim severe personal damage from their dealings with the agency.

Former City to the Lake project director Tim Xirakis told the hearing in September that he had been "unceremoniously dumped" in 2015, resulting in a very tough period.

Pat Seears had a head lease with the government for the paddle boat business. His lease did not allow sub-leasing without permission, but he nevertheless entered a sub-lease with his brother, Jim Seears, who ran the business.

Jim Seears said he paid his brother $90,000 for the sub-lease in 1999, plus just under $2000 a month in rent.

In 2014 the government moved to buy the bike and boat hire businesses at the lake to make way for commercial and residential development.

Jim Seears said the agency had initially discussed relocation, but he had then been told his sublease with his brother was "no good" and his business would be closed. Eventually, he had been told, in a meeting including the government solicitor and former project director Tim Xirakis, that his sublease would be recognised and he would be paid out for loss of wages. He had wanted the equivalent of $100,000 a year for eight to nine years.

But "they all got taken off the case" and agency chief executive "David Dawes started dealing directly with me", "just me and him", Mr Seears told the inquiry.

He had met about three times alone with Mr Dawes.

"I went to school with David Dawes in Cooma. He was in my class at school so we had known each other forever. Yeah everything was quite civil. He was very cunning though ... but everything was quite amicable," he told the inquiry.

Mr Dawes had initially tried to tell him again that "I had nothing there, the sub-lease was no good".

But he had responded that the lease had been recognised by the government's solicitors and had shown Mr Dawes that the revenue office had accepted a stamp duty payment when he bought the lease from his brother.

At the second meeting, Mr Dawes had offered $500,000, and at the third meeting the pair had settled on $575,000 plus GST, plus $10,000 towards his legal fees.

He was not sure why Mr Dawes had changed his mind but "I think he got advice to say they couldn't just throw me out on the street, it was my whole livelihood".

Mr Seears said he had been forced to stop using a lawyer and negotiate himself.

Mr Dawes told the inquiry in September that the agency had "back and forth discussions" with Jim Seears, with the price based on valuations, but the negotiations were "awkward" because the two brothers were not on speaking terms.

Jim Seears said his $575,000 payment had had been "a nice cheque ... even though it was a bit paltry" and had come with "a hell of a lot of pressure".

Auditor Maxine Cooper reported that three valuers had put his business at $270,000 to $279,000.

His brother Pat Seears was paid $1 million for the head lease after two valuations of $50,000 and $100,000, and a third from Colliers at $900,000 to $1 million.