In the 2017-2018 Federal Budget the Government announced several changes aimed at reducing pressure on housing affordability, some of which affect foreign ownership of Australian residential property. The biggest change is the introduction of a cap on foreign ownership in new developments, through a condition on New Dwelling Exemption Certificates…
1 May, 2017
Is the Option Fee Treated as Consideration When Calculating GST Under the Margin Scheme?
In The Trustee for the Whitby Trust v Commissioner of taxation AATA 343 (20 March 2017), the AAT has held that an option fee paid by a developer do not form part of the consideration for acquiring the property for the purposes of calculating GST under the margin scheme…
These statistics on Building from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) published in February 2017 show some very interesting trends. The salient figures worth noting is that, at the time of publication, there has been a slightly downwards trend for all building by 0.1% for the last 7 months but…
5 April, 2017
You, Me and the Garnishee
The first question clients ask when obtaining a favourable judgment is “how will we enforce this judgment against the debtor?”. The quickest and most effective way to enforce a judgment debt is to obtain a garnishee order from the Court. This article sets out the key elements of garnishee orders…
13 March, 2017
Creditors to be vigilant when using the statutory demand procedure to enforce an Adjudication Certificate
IntroductionDuring the process of obtaining payment under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) (SOP Act), a Contractor (or Subcontractor) may, after obtaining an adjudication certificate and filing the certificate in the court of competent jurisdiction, serve a statutory demand on the Principal (or Contractor) demanding…
In our June 2016 issue of Construction, Property & Projects Insights (Issue 4), we discussed the first instance decision of Probuild Constructions (Aust) Pty Ltd v Shade Systems Pty Ltd NSWSC 770, in which the Supreme Court of NSW held that adjudication determinations were subject to judicial review for non-jurisdictional…
20 February, 2017
Buyer’s Beware: Is the selling agent an agent for all purposes? – Tan v Russell [2016] VSC 93
Legal IssueA recent decision in the Victorian Supreme Court examined whether the Plaintiffs, Tan and Lo, validly exercised their cooling off rights to terminate a contract for sale in circumstances where the notice was served on the vendor’s selling agent.Practical Effect of DecisionThe case illustrates the importance of knowing, prior…
IntroductionIn our November 2016 Construction, Property & Projects Insights (Issue 5), we noted that the High Court was soon to release judgment in Southern Han Breakfast Point Pty Ltd (In Liquidation) v Lewence Construction Pty Ltd HCA 52 (Southern Han Decision), which would be the first time the High Court…