VIC Withdrawal from land contract and deposit refund

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Ehoang1268

Member
15 June 2018
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1
Hi,

I'm needing some guidance where my husband and I would like to withdrawal from a land contract of sale, and try and get our deposit back.

The contract is quite iron tight where we are unable to nominate third parties not directly related to us, or where we are a 50% shareholder of a company. We also are unable to onsell the land after settlement till a dwelling is built.

Through our conveyancer we sent a proposal to the vendor asking to withdrawl from the sale, and stating the reason my husband and are going through martial issues, and it would be unethical for us to continue with the sale. We were approved from being released from the contract, which included paying lawyer fees to prepare deed cancellation paperwork, but rejected for being able to nominate another party to pay our deposit back and having to forefeit the deposit.

Contracts were signed July 2017, with scheduled settlement June 2018. This has been delayed till September 2018.

We had every intention with building a dwelling on the land, and have correspondence with builders and draftmen, but due to the current circumstance we can't commit to such a big decision.

Any advise would be much appreciated.
 

Rod

Lawyer
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27 May 2014
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If you sign the deed of cancellation there's a very strong chance you'll forfeit your deposit, assuming it is less than 10% of the purchase price.

Your marital situation, while unfortunate in terms of the timing, is not a valid legal reason for breaking a contract.
 

Ehoang1268

Member
15 June 2018
2
0
1
If you sign the deed of cancellation there's a very strong chance you'll forfeit your deposit, assuming it is less than 10% of the purchase price.

Your marital situation, while unfortunate in terms of the timing, is not a valid legal reason for breaking a contract.

I got a second opinion from another conveyancer and they'll be helping me draft a better letter, because the original one sent looked to have been done by a trainee and she may had just forward my email without rewording it to make my case more convincing . Hoping my counter offer will be successful, by suggesting to sign a statutory declaration advising we don't want to profit from the nominated party or sell the land back to the vendor, because they've had issues in the past with other parties profiting from reselling the land.
 

Rod

Lawyer
LawConnect (LawTap) Verified
27 May 2014
7,726
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2,894
www.hutchinsonlegal.com.au
Ok, good luck with the new letter.
 
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