Lovegrove Smith & Cotton
Construction Law & Planning Law Weekly Bulletin
Monday 24 March 2014
Last weekend the Australian athletic championships were held in Sydney and the nation’s top emerging quarter milers were engaging in a battle royal. This photo shows my godson Wez and his fellow Victorians flying round the bend with 100 metres to go. Try to pick the winner and to find out click here. I would say that it will just take a minute but that wouldn’t be true as the race was won in under 51 seconds. The winner also won the national 800 metre title. On a final note Victoria won gold, silver and bronze not a bad effort for the mighty young flyers from Victoria.
Building Cases and the Dangers and Vagaries of Flawed Expert Testimony by Conjoint Professor Kim Lovegrove FAIB (International readership)
The winning and losing of a building case often has everything to do with the calibre of one`s expert witness. Expert witnesses are unregulated and unlike lawyers or doctors are not accountable to any disciplinary or oversight bodies so the calibre of experts can vary greatly, from the very good to the underwhelming. This article “the dangers of flawed expert testimony” was published in the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors magazine TABS and it has attracted a lot of feedback and comment in the construction industry related online communities. To read the article click here.
How Water Tight is a Construction Certificate and Can you Go Behind it? By Mr. Justin Cotton (NSW readership)
Does any defective action or omission of an accredited certifier automatically lead to a Part 4A certificate they have issued becoming invalid? Justin Cotton, partner and head of practitioner advocacy takes a further look at a recent Land & Environment Court decision and its rationale on how well construction certificates can stand up to scrutiny. Click here to access Justin’s article.”
Alarm Bells for Builders: A Duty of Care Owed in Respect of Commercial Buildings in NSW and Potentially Australia by Mr. Peter Micevski (NSW readership)
A builder will owe a duty to exercise reasonable care in the construction of a building to avoid causing an owner to suffer loss resulting from latent defects which are structural, constitute a danger to persons or property, or make the building uninhabitable, unless certain factors exist which militate against the existence of a duty. This article explains a recent development in tort law with respect to builder’s liability for economic loss caused by latent defects, which rings alarm bells for Builders of commercial buildings in NSW and potentially throughout all of Australia. Click here to access this article.
Buyer Beware: The Dangers of Purchasing Property Before it is Constructed by Mr. Owen Lai (Victorian readership)
This article explores the possibilities of an action for building defects between a subsequent owner against a Builder, where a vendor has entered into a terms of settlement with the Builder prior to the selling of the property to the subsequent owner. To access the article click here.
BOINZ 47th Annual Conference & Expo 2014 – ‘Building Controls: Our Future’ (New Zealand and International readership)
The Building Officials Institute of New Zealand is holding its annual conference between April the 6th and 9th 2014 in Wellington. The two keynote speakers are the Hon. Maurice Williamson, Minister of Building and Construction and Conjoint Professor Kim Lovegrove FAIB. Kim’s address will canvass issues concerning anomalies and limitations with the NZ Building Act and he will provide pointers on how to fix it up. To access the flyer for this national conference, please click here.
The Lovegrove Smith & Cotton’s E-Library is a free online resource of articles, which puts a wealth of information at your fingertips. The articles in the E- Library have been written by lawyers and a number of them have been published in the Australian, The Age and the Herald Sun. Some of the articles date back to the 1990’s. To access please E-Library.
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