The Court of Appeal (Niall CJ, Richards and Donoghue JJA) published Northcote Shopping Centre Pty Ltd v Aldi Foods Pty Ltd [2026] VSCA 140 this morning.  The case was an application to overturn Croft J’s decision, referred to in this blog post, where his Honour had held that it was permissible under s 35(2) of the Retail Leases Act […]

A number of readers have been asking about the appeal of the decision in the Wollert Lifestyle Community case, discussed here. The appeal is listed for a hearing in the Court of Appeal on 23 June 2026, following which the Court is likely to reserve for a few weeks before handing down its judgment.  I will […]

A reminder that our CPD session with Greens List is this Wednesday, 10 June 2026. If you haven’t done so already, you can register here. In the last post, we introduced the question of whether restricting the permitted use in a lease can prevent the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) from applying, and summarised two recent decisions addressing […]

A vexing issue in retail and commercial leasing has been the extent to which a restriction on the permitted use in a lease can prevent the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) (RLA 2003) from applying. The decision in Sofos v Coburn (1992) V ConvR 54-439 suggests that the Act will not apply when the lease […]

This question has vexed the leasing community for some time, and has recently been addressed (in part at least) by a VCAT decision that was published in the last week or so. There are, by and large, two questions: Does the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) continue to apply to the lease if, say, the […]

Many readers will be familiar with the Ministerial determination that excludes lease with a term of 15 years or more (and certain other related leases) from the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic).  For those who are not, a copy of that determination is available by following the link here. The 15 year determination has been a […]

In the recent decision of Paramount Investments Group Pty Ltd v Club Fogolar Furlan Melbourne [2025] VSC 90, Croft J in the Supreme Court considered VCAT’s power to vary conditions on an order for relief against forfeiture after the order was made and after the tenant had failed to comply with the conditions.  His Honour […]

A number of readers have told me that are interested in following developments in the Wollert Lifestyle Community case, discussed in an earlier post here, and have requested updates on the case as it develops. For those who are following the case, the respondents applied to VCAT for a stay of the Tribunal’s orders until hearing […]

Have a look at the following text from section 37(2) of the Retail Leases Act 2003 (Vic) (emphasis added): (2) The current market rent is taken to be the rent obtainable at the time of the review in a free and open market between a willing landlord and willing tenant in an arm’s length transaction having regard to these matters— […]

I have had a few inquiries recently about an earlier here in which I discussed the VCAT decision of Blue Train Café Pty Ltd v The Trust Company Limited (Building and Property) [2024] VCAT 75, in which the Tribunal rejected an argument by a landlord that a tenant seeking an injunction to restrain wrongful re-entry should […]