Tania Jasper dries out some of the recovered documents on the side of the Merri River yesterday.
THE catch of the day in the Merri River yesterday was not a type of fish but a pile of cheques and title deeds.
The case of a stolen safe took a scenic river diversion when documents belonging to South West Conveyancing were found floating in the water at Dennington.
The Raglan Parade business was broken into early Sunday morning, the thieves making off with the safe.
The contents of the safe were discovered floating in the Merri River yesterday afternoon by a passer-by, South West Conveyancing’s Alistair McKean said.
“There was about 450 Bendigo Bank cheques floating in the river and they had our logo on them so they straight away called us,” he said.
Mr McKean and his partner, South West Conveyancing owner/manager Tania Jasper, were assisted in collecting their missing documents by some boat-owning locals and a young man in a kayak.
Many of the documents were property titles and Ms Jasper said she believed they had most of them back.
“We’re very, very relieved to have the majority of the documents back,” she said.
“We give our heartfelt thanks to the people who brought the floating documents to our attention and to the people in boats who helped fish them out.”
Mr McKean said most of the titles were in a “pretty usable condition” after they removed them from their envelopes and sat them to dry on the river bank in the afternoon sun.
The temporary loss of the documents affected a couple of prospective home-owners by delaying the settlements on their houses, Mr McKean said.
mneal@fairfaxmedia.com.au