Robert Hay Barrister

  • Today I posted an article about Verraty Pty Ltd v Richmond Football Club [2019] VCAT 1073. I have had queries about paragraph (i) where I said: “where the commencing rent under a new lease does not exceed $1,000,000 for the first 12 months,  before the lease is entered into the landlord should make an estimate

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  • Can a “retail premises lease” (within the meaning of s.11 of the  Retail Leases Act 2003) cease to be a “retail premises lease” during its term? That long-standing question has finally been resolved. In Verraty Pty Ltd v Richmond Football Club Ltd [2019] VCAT 1073 the Tribunal held that a lease could cease to a

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  • The High Court has resisted an invitation to expand the grounds on which a party can enforce an oral contract for the sale of the land on the ground of part performance. Legislation in each State and Territory requires that contracts for the sale of land meet certain formal requirements if they are to be

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  • Error in earlier post

    In the post of earlier today I referred to the Justice Legislation Miscellaneous Amendment Bill 1990; the reference should have been to the Justice Legislation Miscellaneous Amendment Bill 2018.

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  • The Victorian government has revealed its “fix” for the problems that emerged from the Victorian Court of Appeal’s decision in  Advisory Services Pty Ltd v Augustin [2018] VSCA 95. That decision was the subject of an earlier blog. The consequence of the decision was that estate agents faced claims by vendors for recovery of commissions that

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  • Following last week’s High Court decision in Burns v Corbett [2018] HCA 15 the Victorian Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has lost its jurisdiction to hear and determine a dispute where one of the parties is resident of a State other than Victoria. This will pose significant problems for VCAT particularly concerning its exclusive jurisdiction to

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  • Vendors of properties who have paid commissions to real estate agents are gearing up to recover the commissions on the ground that they were paid by mistake following the Court of Appeal’s decision in Advisory Services Pty Ltd v Augustin [2018] VSCA 95. Agents are in turn likely to take action against the party that drafted

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  • Deposits hold a special place in contracts for the sale of land and do not fall within the general rules about penalties. Where a purchaser defaults the deposit (customarily 10 per cent) can be forfeited even though the amount of the deposit bears no reference to the anticipated loss to the vendor flowing from the

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  • At general law the question of whether a tenant has validly exercised an option for a further term depends upon whether the tenant has met the conditions contained in the lease for the exercise of the option. The general law has been altered by the Retail Leases Act 2003. Section 27(2) provides that: ” If

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  • Leased premises that are “retail premises” within the meaning of s.4(1) of the Retail Leases Act 2003 are excluded from the operation of the Act where the lease term is 15 years or longer and other conditions are met. See: ss.5(1)(c) and 4(2)(f) and the Ministerial Determination dated 23 August 2004. The Ministerial Determination has

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