Braidotti & Anor v Queensland City Properties Limited

Augusto Braidotti and Mary Braidotti (the applicants) sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Full Court of Queensland. The dispute concerned the rescission of a contract for the sale of property. The Full Court had declared that the respondent, Queensland City Properties Limited, had validly rescinded the contract on 10 August 1989, entitling the respondent to claim damages against the applicants.

The legal issues before the High Court involved the interpretation of the Property Law Act. Specifically, the court was required to determine whether the contract was an instalment contract within the meaning of section 71 of the Act, and whether the vendor's purported rescission, without prior notice of intention to do so as required by section 72 of the Act, constituted a repudiation of the contract that entitled the purchaser to rescind.

The applicants' submission was that the Full Court's reasoning was flawed. They contended that the contract was not an instalment contract as defined by the Act, and that the vendor's actions did not amount to a repudiation. The applicants highlighted clause 42 of the contract, which stipulated weekly payments for farming purposes until the contract's end, and clause 1, which provided the vendor with a right to recover unpaid deposit amounts as a liquidated debt regardless of termination. The applicants argued that these provisions, along with the standard form nature of the contract, supported their position that the Full Court had erred in its interpretation of the law and the contract.