building materials

Dealing with deregistered companies referred to in restrictive covenants

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Restrictive covenants in Victoria often give development discretion to companies that have long been deregistered. A good example is the series of covenants affecting the area around Altona that may provide:

… nor will I or my heirs executors administrators or transferees use any material other than brick and/or stone for the main walls of any such shop or dwelling house without the consent in writing of the said Altona Beach Estates Limited

Altona Beach Estates Limited, the original developer of the land, has long ceased to exist.

A question is then raised: how will the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) exercise its discretion if it is called upon to act in the capacity of the deregistered company pursuant to section 601AE(2) of the Corporations Act 2001?

Helpfully, ASIC has produced a practice note of sorts to explain its policy in relation to such requests.

This policy states that ASIC may consider applications for consent under an encumbrance (e.g. plans of subdivision where there is no specific prohibition to subdivision in the encumbrance; construction of a fence within the restrictions/conditions of the encumbrance) and may consider applications to discharge expired encumbrances. However, ASIC will not otherwise vary the restrictions/conditions of an encumbrance or discharge a current encumbrance.

It is not then, as some might have you believe, a fait accomplis that the discretion will be exercised in the applicant’s favour.

The policy can be found here: http://asic.gov.au/for-business/closing-your-company/effects-of-deregistration/property-of-deregistered-companies/there-is-an-encumbrance-also-known-as-a-covenant-or-restrictive-covenant-over-my-property-in-favour-of-a-deregistered-company/

Brick no longer means ‘double-brick’ in building materials covenants

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In Clare & Ors v Bedelis [2016] VSC 381 AsJ Derham found that a house built using a wooden sub-frame, did not breach a building materials covenant preventing the construction of a dwelling house “other than one having walls of brick or stone.”

In doing so, the Victorian Supreme Court effectively set aside the approach that has been in place since the 1956 decision of Sholl J in Jacobs v Greig VLR 597 that has often been said to require houses subject to such building materials covenants to be double brick construction:

113 In my unaccompanied view of the Land and neighbourhood, it became apparent that the bulk of the houses were constructed with an external appearance of brick.  Some had upper levels that included timber.  But the overall appearance of the neighbourhood was that the houses were substantial in size and built of brick, whether that was solid brick or brick veneer could not be seen.  Apart from the decision in Jacobs v Greig, there is no warrant in this case for the conclusion that the requirement, in effect, that the dwelling house on the Land be constructed with walls of brick or stone has the purpose of anything more than the aesthetic appearance of the house and the avoidance of low quality materials.  As I have said, I am not prepared to take judicial notice that strength, durability or any other matter forms a part of the purpose of the Covenant.  The evidence before Sholl J in Jacobs v Greig is not before me.  In any event, that decision was merely an interlocutory decision arrived at on the basis that there was a prima facie case that the construction of the covenant required solid or cavity brick and not brick veneer.  …

119 The evidence in this case clearly shows that the house has walls of brick, albeit brick veneer.  There is nothing in the covenant that requires the roof to be supported by the brick walls as distinct from the timber frame.  There is no evidence produced by the plaintiffs to establish that the meaning of the expression ‘walls of brick or stone’ in 1956 or indeed at any other time, does not embrace brick veneer walls.  I am therefore not satisfied that the house under construction is in breach of the covenant because it is constructed with walls of brick veneer.

Matthew Townsend
Owen Dixon Chambers
http://www.vicbar.com.au/profile?3183
townsend@vicbar.com.au (04) 1122 0277
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation

Building materials covenants still have work to do in Victoria

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In Gardencity Altona v Grech [2015] VSC 538 Associate Justice Lansdowne refused an application to remove a covenant requiring the main walls of any dwelling or shop on the land to be of brick and/or stone, on the basis that it could not be said that the covenant was obsolete, or that it’s removal would not occasion substantial injury to those with the benefit of the covenant.

No single dwelling covenant attached to the land, and so arguably, only the building materials covenant prevented the applicant from realising his development plans for the land.

Instrumental to her Honour’s reasoning was that the defendants had a genuine preference for the use of brick as a building material.

Her Honour also left open the possibility that if it were shown that removal of the brick or stone restriction would make a taller building less likely that may be a further benefit conferred by the restriction and so further reason why the restriction is not obsolete.

Significantly, the application was made in a neighbourhood found to be predominantly constructed with brick or stone:

142 I find on the whole of the evidence that the buildings in the neighbourhood predominantly have their main walls constructed in brick or stone. As indicated, I refer in this finding to the actual incidence of the use of brick or stone, rendered or exposed, not the visual incidence of exposed brick. By ‘predominantly’ I mean well more than half, and on a broad estimate at least two thirds.

This feature of the case will require close scrutiny for parties wishing to rely on the decision as a precedent.

Of particular interest is that the Court declined to apply the 1956 decision of Jacobs v Greig [1956] VLR 597, often cited as authority for the proposition that a requirement to build out of brick requires ‘double brick’ construction rather than brick veneer:

134 Having regard to Mr McLaughlin’s expert evidence that brick veneer is now an acceptable use of brick in construction, I consider the particular outcome in Jacobs v Greig to be limited to its particular facts and time. On the principle identified in that case, I find that an ordinary resident of Victoria would consider the covenants here in question do not now exclude brick veneer. Accordingly, I find that for this case at least, brick veneer is ‘brick’ for the purposes of the covenants, and like covenants in the area.

This is a welcome development given that double brick is now rarely used in Victoria for reasons of cost and energy efficiency.

Matthew Townsend
Owen Dixon Chambers
http://www.vicbar.com.au/profile?3183
townsend@vicbar.com.au (04) 1122 0277
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation