Construction and Property

Kallan Lawyers acts for builders, developers, owners, trades and subcontractors on construction contracts and building disputes, and on the property transactions that sit around them. It is a genuine part of our practice rather than an advertised sideline, and it is informed by direct experience in the industry.

Contracts before the dispute

Most construction disputes are decided by terms agreed months earlier and never read carefully. We review and draft:

• head contracts and subcontracts, including amended standard forms
• consultancy and design agreements
• domestic building contracts, which carry their own statutory requirements
• development, joint venture and landowner agreements

The provisions worth spending time on are the ones that operate when the job is not going to plan: how variations must be claimed and approved, how extensions of time are notified, how progress claims are made and certified, what triggers a right to suspend or terminate, liquidated damages, defects liability, retention and security, and whether personal guarantees have been given.

Payment

The fastest route to recovery for an unpaid progress claim is usually a claim under the security of payment legislation, which provides a rapid adjudication process on an interim basis. It is fast, and it is unforgiving about time limits: a claim made late, or a response served out of time, can decide the matter regardless of the underlying merits.

We act both for parties pursuing payment and for parties responding to a claim, and we advise on whether the security of payment route or ordinary recovery is the better option in the circumstances.

Disputes

The disputes we see most often concern defects and rectification, variations and scope, delay and extensions of time, back-charges, termination and abandonment, and defective or incomplete documentation. Depending on the contract and the parties, these are resolved by negotiation, by expert determination, at VCAT, or in the courts.

Our first advice on a building dispute is usually about proportion: what the claim is realistically worth, what it will cost to pursue, and whether the commercial answer is better than the legal one.

Property

On the property side we act on commercial acquisitions and sales, site acquisition and the structuring of the entity that holds the land, options and put and call arrangements, and commercial and retail leasing. Because the tax, trust and structuring work sits in the same firm, the question of which entity should hold the land, and what that means for duty, land tax and future capital gains, is answered at the same time as the contract.

This page is general information about the kinds of matters we advise on. It is not legal advice, and your own contract and circumstances will change the answer.