OPINIONby Tim O’Dwyer M.A., LL.BSolicitorConsumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au Conveyancing solicitors across Queensland have been anxiously scurrying to their filing cabinets to check settled and unsettled off-the-plan unit contracts following a surprise court decision. Serious repercussions could flow far and wide from this decision – not only for the state’s legal profession, but also for the local property development industry and the government. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Mackenzie’s decision in Bossichix v Martinek Holdings turned on...
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OPINIONby Peter Mericka B.A., LL.BReal Estate LawyerQualified Practising Conveyancer VictoriaDirector Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd The old Contract Note was a very simple document. It contained no General Conditions (these were incorporated by reference) and so purchasers were not frightened of it. Estate agents were never asked difficult questions, and purchasers readily signed it. The introduction of the new standard Contract of Sale of Real Estate has changed this. Consumers are becoming more aware of...
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OPINION by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd I have been very critical of the underhanded approach taken by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) in designing the new standard form Contract of Sale of Real Estate so as to create an even more deceptive document than the old Contract Note. To put my money where my mouth is I have...
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OPINIONby Peter Mericka B.A., LL.BReal Estate LawyerQualified Practising Conveyancer VictoriaDirector Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd The new Contract of Sale of Real Estate prescribed by the Estate Agents (Contracts) Regulations 2008 was supposed to end the dodgy practice of estate agents withholding terms and conditions from purchasers, but it hasn’t. The document designed by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) allows estate agents to trick purchasers into believing that they have received “the...
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OPINIONby Tim O’Dwyer M.A., LL.BSolicitorConsumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au When will governments put in place stronger legislative measures to protect real estate consumers not only from self-serving real estate agents, but also from their own trusting natures? The story below from a school teacher client of mine, whilst ending happily, gives ample reason for a long-overdue legal prohibition on agents’ referring buyers to building inspectors, mortgage brokers, solicitors and the like. “A recent experience with building inspectors...
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OPINIONby Peter Mericka B.A., LL.BReal Estate LawyerQualified Practising Conveyancer VictoriaDirector Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd Geoff Thompson is the Director of Barry Plant Real Estate in Croydon Victoria, and the Barry Plant Real Estate tag line is “The red carpet experience”. I felt that the red carpet had been pulled out from under me and my client when Geoff Thompson’s sales representative Pauline Ferguson switched contracts without my knowledge and without any explanation. Secret...
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OPINIONby Peter Mericka B.A., LL.BReal Estate LawyerQualified Practising Conveyancer VictoriaDirector Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd David Sowersby is the Director of Walshe & Whitelock Real Estate, Brunswick and an Associate of the Real Estate Institute of Australia. David Sowersby is also a “contract switcher”. Some years ago I pounced on Sowersby for “switching” contracts, and thought he had changed his ways. Unfortunately, it seems that when you’ve been in the industry as long as...
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It would appear that Barry Plant Real Estate has adopted the tactic of having a “gazumping” clause inserted into real estate contracts. We again warn consumers against allowing estate agents to tamper with the contract. A “gazumping” clause is a special condition which is inserted into a purchaser’s offer by an estate agent. Effectively, it allows a latecomer to the sale to submit a “bid” to the vendor. If the...
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by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.BReal Estate LawyerQualified Practising Conveyancer VictoriaDirector Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd There are few things more dangerous for real estate consumers than estate agents who fancy themselves as “wheelers and dealers”. They are usually the ones who cause the wheels to fall off real estate transactions, usually because one party or the other feels that they have been let down. Enzo Raimondo not only acknowledges that estate agents like to...
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by Tim O’Dwyer M.A., LL.BSolicitorConsumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au After firing more than a few verbal bullets over recent months at Queensland’s Attorney-General (and Fair Trading Minister) Kerry Shine in The Courier Mail and Gold Coast Bulletin newspapers, on ABC radio and here in the Australian Real Estate Blog, I finally got a response (of sorts). The critical issues, of course, had been the largely unregulated role of legally unqualified real estate agents in the preparation...
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