Decision sparks uncertainty for Victorian property industry

Potentially resulting in a huge windfall for anybody who has sold a property through a real estate agent in Victoria in recent years, the case of Advisory Services Pty Ltd (Trading as Ray White St Albans) v Stella Augustin has sent ripples of uncertainty through the Victorian property industry.

In this case, a real estate agent pursued a vendor for sales commission on a contract of sale that ultimately fell through. It seems pretty fair, and probably a common sense outcome, that the real estate agent lost their claim for commission on a sale that didn't complete. However, curiously that is not the reason that Court found the agent was not entitled to commission. Both the County Court, and the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court upheld a technical argument by the vendor that the real estate agent failed to comply with an obligation to disclose any rebates (even though there were none to disclose) in its exclusive sales authority appointment, and that the agent was