Owners of home destroyed in a landslide at McCrae on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula say they are engaging a lawyer

The owners of a luxury holiday home destroyed in a major landslide on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula are “grateful” nobody was killed but say they will be taking legal action.

The $2 million property on Penny Lane at McCrae collapsed, falling about 50m onto the street below, just before 9am on Tuesday.

A Mornington Peninsula Council worker, aged in his 50s, who was inspecting the property at the time was injured in the collapse.

He sustained lower body injuries and was taken to hospital where he remains in a stable condition.

Eleven other houses have been evacuated, with more residents in the area advised to leave on Wednesday.

Homeowners Nick and Kellie Moran said they were “very grateful” no one was killed in the landslide and sent their best wishes to the injured council worker.

It is understood the worker was inspecting the home following an earlier slip just over a week ago, when the Moran family were inside their holiday home.

“A landslip impacted our property from a property above ours last week,” they said.

“On that occasion family members were in the house and fortunately no one was injured or killed. The subsequent slip from the same property is very significant.”

The homeowners said they had engaged a lawyer and would be working with their insurance company.

“We will have a measured approach to working through this with all the relevant parties,” they said.

“The slip occurred from above onto our land and the civil issues relating to that will be in an objective manner.”

Nick Moran had previously said he could not comprehend how “bloody lucky” his family was.

“It looks like it has destroyed our house which doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things but narrowly missed my daughter and wife let alone the stack of people we entertained there over the break,” he said in a social media post.

Heavy rainfall caused a major landslide in the area in November 2022.

Since then, it is understood council has installed stormwater drains at the top of the hill.

But locals say instead of fixing the problem the water had just been redirected and that another major landslide was bound to happen.

Mornington Peninsula Mayor Anthony Marsh would not comment further on what could have caused the landslide, but said council was continuing to work with the relevant authorities to investigate exactly what happened.

“Until investigations are complete, we cannot comment on the likely cause,” he said.

On Wednesday geotechnical engineers monitored the hill where the landslide occurred, checking for any further movement.

State Emergency Service controller Mark Daw said there was a “high risk” of a further collapse, with 2mm of movement overnight into Wednesday.

“Since then (there’s been) no movement where we’re monitoring,” he said.

“(The geotechs) believe there is a lot more mass that has still got movement in it and is potentially still to come.”

Point Nepean Rd remains closed and could be shut for up to a week.