Recent developments in Property Law

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/ )