Friday 30 March 2012

Recent developments in Property Law 2012

I have just presented a paper entitled "Case law updates and developments" to Leo Cussen's annual Property Law intensive.

The paper covered 5 areas:

1. A mortgagee's duty on the sale of land in its possession under section 77 of the Transfer of Land Act, 1958, following MBF v Nolan [2011] VSCA 114;
2. Severance of joint tenancies, in view of the recent Supreme Court decisions of Sacks v Klein [2011] VSC 451 and Stassinopoulos v Stassinopoulos [2011] VSC 647;
3. Whether  a substantial variation to a lease effected a surrender and re-grant of the lease, to bring it under the Retail Leases Act, 2003 and whether a tenant (the Richmond Football Club) could recover outgoings and land tax paid under a mistake of fact; following Richmond Football Club Ltd v Verraty Pty Ltd [2011] VCAT 2104;
4.  Whether a tenant who had recently been granted an order for relief against forfeiture of its lease should be granted a second order when it was in default under the lease almost immediately after the first grant (see Lontav Pty Ltd v Pineross Custodial Services Pty Ltd [2011] VSC 485); and
5. The detailed analysis of notices of default served on tenants by Judd J in Primary RE Ltd v Great Southern Holdings Pty Ltd [2011] VSC 242.

A copy of all of the seminar papers from the intensive (including mine) are available from Leo Cussen Institute (web site: http://www.leocussen.vic.edu.au/ )

W G Stark

Hayden Starke Chambers

Thursday 22 March 2012

New form of contract of sale of real estate from March 2012

Further to my post of 27 February 2012, there is a further new form of Contract of Sale of Real Estate in Victoria.

The latest changes have been brought about by the Consumer Affairs Legislation Amendment (Reform) Act 2010. The Act amended the Sale of Land Act 1962 (Vic), by:

• the removal of the ability for deposits to be held in vendor/purchaser joint accounts for off‐the‐plan sales, and

 • providing for cooling off rights where clients have received pre‐contractual advice from a legal practitioner.



These changes came into operation on 1 March 2012.

W G Stark

Wednesday 14 March 2012

What's hot in mortgage enforcement?

I have just presented a paper entitled "What's hot in mortgage enforcement?" to a mortgage disputes seminar run by Legalwise Seminars.

The paper covers 4 areas:
1. A mortgagee's duty on the sale of land in its possession under section 77 of the Transfer of Land Act, 1958, following MBF v Nolan [2011] VSCA 114;
2. Mortgage fraud; specifically dealing with the Queensland decision in Commonwealth Bank of Australia v Perrin [2011] QSC 274;
3. Warrants of execution - covering Secure Funding v Doneley [2010] QSC 91; Wu v Ma [2011] VSC 208 and Kousal v Suncorp-Metway Ltd [2011] VSC 312 (the $1,000 sheriff sale case); and
4. The impact of the Personal Property Securities Act, 2009 on enforcement by mortgagees.

A copy of the paper is available on the Greens List web site: www.greenslist.com.au

W G Stark
Hayden Starke Chambers