A little proof-reading goes a long way
Every lease lawyer's nightmare came true in this case. A
long term lease is negotiated and many years later someone
discovers an apparent error in the way the outgoings clause is
drafted and therefore how the outgoings have been calculated and
recovered for all those years. To make it worse, the lease is for
the key department store tenant (Myer) in Australia's premier
shopping centre (Chadstone) - the stakes were high with about $20
million having been apparently undercharged.1
How the Lease was negotiated
When the matter came to court it was the best part of 30 years
since the lease negotiations originally started and the court had
to piece together if there was, in fact, a mistake made or not.
While some documents and files had been destroyed or lost and
memories naturally fade, the court was able to rely on the existing
correspondence, board minutes, drafts and witness statements to
piece together the long process by
