Solved: Property Law
Aria and her second husband Bob are the registered proprietors in fee simple under the Real Property Act 1900, NSW of a riverside property near the Hawkesbury river in New South Wales. They hold the property as joint tenants on trust for the benefit of Aria’s son from her first marriage, Ethan. As is the usual situation, no notification of the trust appears on the Register and Ethan, trusting his mother and step-father, has not lodged a caveat noting his interest as beneficiary. The family intends to eventually set up a spa and yoga retreat but, in the meantime they all live in Sydney. While all the family members are completing their training as yoga and wellness instructors Aria and Bob enter into an oral lease of the property with Grayson. He is going to use it to grow organic vegetables and, eventually, will also supply the venture with healthy food. He has planted seeds and visits the property every couple of days to water them and to remove weeds. The lease is for a period of 2 years and he is paying market rent. Bob is not really interested in yoga, or in Aria and her son, and so he secretly enters into a contract to sell the property to Caden for $770,000. He signs his own name on the contract and forges Aria’s signature. Just before exchange of contracts Caden inspects the property. He notices the cultivated areas but thinks nothing of it. Caden pays the usual 10% deposit on exchange of contracts. A few days later Caden meets Ethan in a local bar. Ethan tells Caden about the plans for the yoga and health retreat. Caden says nothing about his contract but immediately contacts Bob and tells him that he is ready to complete his purchase. Once again, Bob signs his own name onto the Transfer, and forges Aria’s signature. At completion he hands this, and the Certificate of Title to the property to Caden, in return for the balance of purchase price of $700,000. Bob then disappears with the money. After settlement Caden goes to take possession of the property only to find Grayson there looking after his plants. Grayson tells him that he still has 2 years remaining on his lease and that he intends to stay for that long. Caden then immediately lodges his Transfer for registration and he becomes the registered proprietor the next day. Aria and her sons have now found out what has happened and they want to know whether Caden’s registration as proprietor can be attacked. Caden wants to know whether he will be subject to Grayson’s lease if their action against him fails. Advise the parties. Formalities Value: 30% Due date: Tuesday 8 May, 2018: 5pm SHARP Late Submission Penalty: Unless a Special Consideration request has been submitted and approved, (a) a penalty for lateness will apply – two (2) marks out of 100 will be deducted per day for assignments submitted after the due date – and (b) no assignment will be accepted more than seven (7) days (incl. weekends) after the original submission deadline. If you have applied for an extension, then you must submit your assignment within the extended time that you are seeking. Do not assume that special consideration will be granted and do not wait until your application has been assessed. For example, if you seek an extension of one day then you must submit within that time – do not wait until after you have received notice of the outcome of your application. Submission method: by file upload to unit webpage “Hypothetical question submission point” Word limit: 1500 words excluding footnotes (please note this is different to the unit outline which states that footnotes are included in the word count). Markers WILL NOT READ any material in excess of 1500 words. This could have a substantial impact on your mark. Please note the actual word count at the beginning of your answer. Bibliography is NOT required but ensure compliance with the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (AGLC) for citation requirements. Penalties of up to 10% of the total marks will be imposed for non-compliance with referencing requirements. 1. ASSESSMENT CRITERIA FOR HYPOTHETICAL PROBLEM QUESTIONS FAIL (49% AND BELOW)- fails to identify and discuss relevant issues of law raised by facts;
- contains incorrect statements of law;
- does not provide relevant authorities for propositions of law;
- inappropriate and/or irrelevant content, including circumstances in which the student has uploaded the incorrect file to the ilearn submission point;
- plagiarism, use of other students’ work, ‘recycling’ own work from other units;
- difficult to read and/or understand through poor grammar, expression or structure
- fails to comply with formatting or submission instructions.
- correctly identifies and discusses a limited number of issues of law raised by the facts
- contains no significant errors of law;
- provides correct authorities for propositions of law;
- attempts to apply relevant law to the given facts;
- adequate expression and compliance with formatting and submission instructions.
- correctly identifies and discusses most of the issues of law raised by the facts;
- contains no errors of law;
- provides correct authorities for propositions of law;
- successfully applies relevant law to the given facts;
- identifies differences between facts in the question and fact patterns in cases, and attempts to discuss relevance of this to the solution;
- identifies discrepancies/inconsistencies within the law, and attempts to resolve these where they are relevant to the given facts;
- attempts to explain which outcome is more likely where there is more than 1 possible solution to the problem;
- has clear structure and clear expression.
- well structured, clearly communicating the expected outcome;
- correctly identifies and discusses all of the issues of law raised by the facts;
- contains no errors of law;
- provides correct authorities for propositions of law;
- identifies differences between facts in the question and fact patterns in cases, and successfully discusses the relevance of this to the solution;
- identifies discrepancies/inconsistencies within the law, and successfully resolves these where they are relevant to the given facts;
- gives reasoned argument in favour of policy outcomes where the issue is raised by the question
- satisfies all the criteria for a Distinction;
- is exceptionally well written and exceptionally well-structured.
- demonstrates superior and original analytical skills.