Caveats are placed on a title deed to claim one’s interest in a land. It is usually placed underneath the second schedule warning others of their interest with the letter ‘C’.  Many have a preconceived view on caveats and believe that it is usually used defensively when two purchaser’s have competing interests on the same land. For example, when a vendor sells a land to a purchaser and then sells it to a second party, the 1^st purchaser would usually put a caveat to stop the party from selling to the 2^nd party. However, this is a misconception. In fact, Caveats should be encouraged to be used pre-emptively.

Preston-Lalor Credit Co-op Ltd and Bunning Building Supplies P/L v Sgro are cases that demonstrate the risks of not using caveats in normal everyday conveyancing.  Purchasers were not able to continue with registration of interest on the Certificate of Title even though they had settled and paid for the land in full earlier. This was because between the period of settlement and registration, a caveat was put on to the title from a 3^rd party to claim the interest in land, happening all in the space of 35mins. The purchasers’ lost the case.  Had the purchaser’s placed a caveat after the exchange then this would have protected the purchaser’s interest in land. 

Therefore, use Caveats wisely when you purchase property.

I'll explain more on the settlement process on my next blog entry. 

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Welcome to ‘The Property Lawyer’ ’s first blog entry. 

What better way to start a first blog entry than to start it with a discussion on First Home Owner’s Benefits Scheme. 

As announced late last year on the OSR website, 2011 is an exciting year for first home buyers, this is because from 1 January 2011, the cap for first home buyer’s grant will be increased from $750,000 to $835,000. What this means is:

If you are a person over the age of 18 and you are looking to buy a property as your principal place of residence with the property price not higher than $835,000, you may be entitled to a benefit of $7000 grant and exempted from paying stamp duty (saving up to $24,990). 

What better time to start owning your property than 2011!

Interesting Stats!

According to the NSW – OSR Website the following are the top suburbs in receiving First Home Owner’s benefits for 2010.

According the OSR website, since its inception in 2000, the suburb Liverpool has been the top performing suburb in receiving first home buyers benefits, receiving a total of $144,773,292 in first home owner’s benefits.  

On another note, I would really like to know what you thought of my blog? Was it helpful? Interesting ? Boring ? Post me a line.