Written by The recent case of Ripani v Century Legend Pty Ltd [2022] FCA 242involved a contract of sale for an apartment sold ‘off the plan’ in which the issues were whether the purchasers were misled or deceived by representations made by the vendor about certain features of the apartment, and whether the representations were sufficient to found a contravention of Australian Consumer Law. The vendor, Century Legend Pty Ltd, prepared promotional materials to be used to market the apartment building, and engaged real estate agents to assist in marketing the apartments. The promotional materials included brochures with images, known as ‘renders’ of what the development would look like once constructed. The centre of the proceedings was the question of what, if any, reliance did the purchasers place on the renders. The Court considered that Century Legend’s conduct was deliberately misleading given their knowledge that it was impossible to construct the apartment in conformity with the render. Additionally, their disclaimer was ‘inutile’ in the circumstances of the case, as it appeared on page 96 of the brochure and was given no prominence in the marketing materials (specifically because it was in a very small font compared to the rest of the brochure and was barely legible against a dark background).
Ultimately the Court held that the purchasers had been misled by the images on the brochures and would not have entered into the contract to purchase the apartment had they not believed that the apartment would be constructed in conformity with the image in the render. They were thereby entitled to rescind the contract pursuant to ss 237 and 243(a) of the ACL.