On Tuesday, 3 October 2006 judgment was handed down in the Maric conveyancing case by his Honour Justice Osborn.
The Supreme Court judgment dismissed the Law Institute of Victoria's application (under the Legal Practice Act 1996) seeking an injunction to restrain the conveyancer from engaging in legal practice. The Court was dealing with a s32 statement which included clauses which are normally found in a contract of sale. The judgment dissolves the previously granted interlocutory injunction and now allows the defendant to continue to operate as a conveyancer, including the preparation of s32 statements. The LIV is reviewing the decision.
Given the Victorian State Government's review of conveyancing companies (and the result being the Conveyancers Bill) what was the Law Institute of Victoria thinking when it launched this action? And really wasn't it 20 years too late. Lawyers lost their conveyancing monopoly 20 years ago.
Supreme Court Victoria Summary of the Maric decision
LIV commenced this action in October 2005 - our inital report
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
You are absolutely right what were they thinking?
They have wasted public money on a futile exercise not being aware of what has happened in other states, not being aware of the national competition policy, nor what the government review was about. anyone involved in conveyancing knew it would fail so how out of touch is the Law Institute. Modern thinking lawyers should hold the LIV council accountable for this farce.
Just read his honours foot note no 2 in the judgement to see how annoyed he was with the LIV. its on the home page of the supreme court web site. Thats how much prominence the Supreme Court staff have given it and good on them.
Extract from Supreme Court decision
The hearing of this matter initially occurred on 30 November and 1 December 2005. His Honour fixed a further mention of the matter on becoming aware that the legislation under which this action was brought (the Practice Act) had been repealed and replaced by the Legal Profession Act 2004. After the exchange of written submissions, a further hearing was then requested by the Institute. His Honour was critical of the Institute in that it did not bring to the immediate attention of the Court the change in legislation, thus delaying the resolution of this proceeding.
Post a Comment