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Yearly Archives

2022

BuildingConstructionLaw
26 December, 2022

Comparison of Home Warranty Insurance Schemes   

What is Homeowners’ Warranty Insurance? Homeowners warranty insurance (HWI) is a type of mandatory insurance designed to protect homeowners in the event that certain residential building works are defective or incomplete. HWI is known by many different names throughout Australia. National Approach Currently there is no uniform national approach to…
CommercialInsolvencyLawTax
2 December, 2022

Director Penalty Regime

Any moratoria in place since COVID-19 is now at an end. The Australian Tax Office (ATO) has reverted back to recovering outstanding tax liabilities. If you are a director of a company, it is important that you are aware that the ATO can, in particular circumstances, recover unpaid company tax…
Property
24 November, 2022

Electronic affixing of seal of an owners corporation

It was always the case that the seal of an Owners Corporation needed to be affixed physically and in the presence of appropriate witnesses to comply with s273 of the Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW) (Act). In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Government Public Health Orders, from 5…
CommercialLaw
17 November, 2022

Penalties in Loan Contracts

Introduction In the current inflationary market, lenders are changing the terms on which they are willing to lend money to both individuals and businesses.  For most borrowers, the key variable is interest rates. Can an interest rate under a loan ever be so high that a court will refuse to…
ContractsProjectsProperty
4 November, 2022

The doctrine of frustration in land contracts

The Doctrine of Frustration Frustration operates to bring a contract to an end in circumstances where an intervening, post-contract event has occurred through no fault of the parties, which makes a contractual obligation impossible to perform or transforms a contractual obligation into a fundamentally different obligation. Frustration in contract generally and…
ConstructionContractsLaw
12 October, 2022

Arbitration is No Bar for Bank Guarantees

In Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd v INPEX Operations Australia Ltd  NSWSC 1125, Daewoo sought to prevent INPEX from calling on a bank guarantee. The Supreme Court ruled against Daewoo. Under a construction contract, the Principal may be entitled to call on a bank guarantee, even while the…