Patterson v Farrell [1912] HCA 43

348 HIGH COURT [1912.

(HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA.)

PATTERSON. 7 § a 3 i . APPELLANT; PLAINTIFF, AND FARRELL ¢ 3 z . . . RESPONDENT. DEFENDANT,

ON APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA.

H.C. or A, Vendor and Purchaser—Contract of Sale—Provision for apportionment of federal

1912. land tax—Validity—Interpretation—Land Tax Assessment Act 1910 (No. 22 os of 1910) secs. 37, 63. MELnourNE,

The owner of certain land, sold it shortly before the coming into operation of the Land Tax Assessment Act 1910, and the purchaser entered into posses- sion shortly after that date. One of the conditions of the contract of sale provided that the purchaser should be liable for 'all rates and taxes and insurance premiums accruing or falling due from and after the date of posses- sion" but that ''all annual outgoings and insurance premiums in respect of the property sold " should be" apportioned between the vendor and pur- chaser up to such date. The vendor, who also owned other land, having paid the federal land tax in respect of the whole of his land including the land so sold for the year during which the purchaser went into possession,

June 18, 19,

Held, that the federal land tax was an annual outgoing within the meaning of the condition ; that the agreement that the land tax for that year should be apportioned was not affected by sec. 63 of the Act ; and, therefore, that the vendor was entitled to recover from the purchaser a sum which would repre- sent a portion of the federal land tax payable in respect of land whose un- improved value was equivalent to that of the land sold proportionate to the period of the year during which the purchaser had been in possession,

Held, further, that the purchaser was not liable to pay at the higher rate at which the vendor was liable to pay because of his owning other land.