« Back to Carter Capner Website | March 2009

Shrinking PAMDA forms

Carter Capner Law receives most of its conveyancing contracts from agents by fax. Recently one arrived that was reduced to 2/3rds of the standard A4 size.

Such distortion during the fax transmission process can have unforeseen legal implications.

As we all know, the PAMDA specifies that when a contract is presented to the buyer, the Form 30c Warning Statement must be attached as the top front sheet of the contract.

Section 366D states:

"A Statement purporting to be a warning statement is of no effect unless the words on the statement are presented in substantially the same way as the word are presented on the approved form"

To ensure that this Section is not misunderstood, the PAMDA then gives the following example:

"If words on the approved form are presented in 14 point font, the words on the warning statement must also be presented in 14 point font."

If therefore a warning statement attached to a residential contract is presented to a buyer for signing by fax and the warning statement is recieved at the buyer’s end in a reduced format, it will be non-compliant.

And as we also all know, such non-compliance would allow a buyer to terminate the contract under Section 367 at any time, even right up to the time of settlement.

It would be prudent to include in a buyer's acknowledgement an additional provision whereby the buyer states "In the case of receipt of the contract documents for signing by fax, I/we acknowledge that all documents were received by me in standard A4 format and the page size of the Form 30c Warning Statement was not reduced."

Note that such acknowledgement does not rectify the situation where there is clear evidence that the received fax was distorted.

Note also that it doesn't matter if subsequent transmissions of the already signed contract, either to the buyer or their solicitor, are received in a reduced size format.

The Electronic Transactions (Queensland) Act 2001 specifies additional legal requirements when e-mailing or faxing residential contracts to buyers for signing. (See Carter Capner Law's February 2009 Property & Leasing eNews for details)

Apply now to Carter Capner Law for FREE LawSpace membership including access to our Queensland Conveyancing Clause Library and prior eNews editions!

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank Carter Capner for your assistance and efforts. I appreciated the courtesy, friendliness and simple explanations to my questions. You exceeded my expectations!
Martin