Principles of Private Law

Principles of Private law

PART A
Issue
This case is based on the issue faced by Bijoux Pty Ltd (“Bijoux”) which is owned by
Serge, Jane and Eloise. There are different issues which are being identified from the given case.
Eloise is the managing director and is responsible for carry out the business operation and Sege
and Jane are having very little involvement in the same. She actually acted as the Managing
director and was not formally appointed by the board of directors. Eloise’s responsibility is to
acquire the new stock and most of these items are purchased through auction. In order to do this,
Eloise has made an arrangement with Dominic who is an antique expert and also bid and
purchased on behalf of Eloise. It is an informal arrangement and Dominic is paid a fee for the
services provided. Dominic always registers as a buyer under the name “Bijoux Pty Ltd”.
However, he do not have authority on behalf of company because he has any formal contract
with Bijoux Pty Ltd. In addition, He signs his name his on the contract of sale and adds in
parentheses “On behalf of Bijoux Pty Ltd”. Dominic is behaving as though he had the role and
responsibility of an acting agent without a formal contract. First is that, Eloise was interested in
buying bureau and purchased it for 30,000 but before making payment for it, it got stolen from
Botheby’s warehouse who is having no interest in getting it investigated as it can claim the loss
under its insurance policy. The next case is that Nicolette who is customer of Bijoux who is
allowed to borrow the items from the store for viewing them before making a purchase. But later
it was revealed that Nicolette earlier purchased $1 million from Emmanuel on a mortgage of her
point piper home and due to her inability to pay the amount, Emmanuel exercised her mortgage
powers before Nicolette could return the item borrowed from the Bijoux and thus, Emmanuel
sold the house to Jean and those items were included in the contract.
Another issue is that the Eloise negotiated with Pierre to lease his terrace house and
everything was agreed regarding the rent and the time period but there was no formal contract in
relation to it. But before moving in Pierre told her that he has other plans for the house and wants
her out. But Eloise refuses to it and several weeks later when Eloise arrives she sees a stranger in
the house who is Jean, a good mate of Pierre can stay here whenever he is in Singapore, that too
free of charge.

Rule
As per the principles of privity, under the licences, which provides permission from one
person to another for doing some act on the licensor’s land which might otherwise considered to
be trespass. In reference to the Thomas v Sorrell (1673) Vaughn 330; 124 ER 10981, where a
landowner permits a person to do something on his or her property, then a licensor-licensee
relationship is created. Such type of licence is considered to bare licence as it is not associated
with any contractual relationship between the parties which can be revoked at the will of the
licensor or any other reason whatever. Under such situation, the licensee becomes the trespasser
if he or she fails to vacant the land or property within the reasonable period of time after
revocation and this can be further referred to Wood v Leadbitter (1845) 13 M&W 838; 153 ER
3512. In addition to this, as stated in the issue, pertaining to the sell of house to Emmanuel,
Nicolette also sold the antiques that she has borrowed from the Bijoux. As per Sale of Land Act
1962 (Vic), the vendor is required to provide a statement to the purchase before signing of the
contract and along with that should disclose the information pertaining to the title and defects in
the quality. But as the per the law, the on sale of property, each and every item is clearly stated
of which title and ownership is being transferred. Along with that, there are certain legal
consequences which might arise under the statutory provisions like the Section 18 of the
Australian Consumer Law wherein the vendor who has engaged into misleading or deceptive
conduct pertaining to the sale of property. As per Byers v Dorotea (1986) 69 ALR 7153, Pincus J
stated that an agreement clause which excludes liability for statements arising from the
representation as per the general law before the contract was signed but it excludes the liability
because of the misrepresentation or the deceptive conduct.
1 Hutchison, A. and Siliquini-Cinelli, L., 2017. Beyond Common Law: Contractual Privity in
Australia and South Africa. J. Comp. L., 12, p.49.
2 Kearney, J.D. and Merrill, T.W., 2021. Index of Published Decisions. In Lakefront (pp. 359-
362). Cornell University Press.
3 Stewart, A., Swain, W. and Fairweather, K., 2019. Contract law: principles and context.
Cambridge University Press.