How Canberra developer Ivan Bulum allegedly left apartment owners with a $2 million bill

It's any investor's nightmare: A life's worth of savings locked up in an apartment you just cannot sell.

But after six years of negotiation and legal drama, that is exactly the problem faced by David Allen, who bought into Canberra's Elara Apartments in 2012.

"We were looking at a place for my daughter to stay and [it] was perfect, just across the road from the University of Canberra," he said.