The High Court on Wed 10.12.2014, unanimously allowed the Commissioner of State Revenue’s appeals from a decision of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria in Lend Lease Development Pty Ltd & Ors v Comr of State Revenue [2013] VSCA 207 and held that the Commissioner was entitled to assess duty to be charged on transfers of land in the Docklands area of Melbourne by reference not only to payments made under specified land sale contracts but also to payments made under a “development agreement” which, together with the land sale contracts, formed a single, integrated and indivisible transaction for the sale and development of the Docklands area.
The High Court held that the transaction recorded in the development agreement made between VicUrban and Lend Lease was a single, integrated and indivisible transaction. The Court held that the consideration for the transfer of land was the performance by Lend Lease of the several promises of payments under the development agreement, and that the Commissioner was right to include those amounts in the assessments.
(Comr of State Revenue v Lend Lease Development Pty Ltd & Ors [2014] HCA 51, High Court, French CJ, Hayne, Kiefel, Bell and Keane JJ, 10 December 2014.)
[LTN 239, 10/12/14]