Projects 1 and 2
36 At first blush it may seem odd that the Members or a representative of them has not been joined as a party. After all, each Grove Agreement is between AOL and a Member. The dispute, however, concerns fees that have in fact been paid by Members under the Grove Agreements to AOL or to Huntley and neither of those parties has suggested that any Member is liable to pay a second time. Nothing that I say in these reasons will affect the Members.
37 In my opinion, neither s 601FS nor s 601FT of the Act permits a re-writing of contracts to which the former RE was a party: see Australian Olive Holdings at [85]. Sections 60FS(1) and 601FT(1) place a new RE in the shoes of the former RE in relation to rights, obligations and liabilities that would have been those of the former RE in respect of the post-changeover period, but for the changeover.
38 Paragraph (a) of s 601FS(2) is not inconsistent with this construction. There may be room for debate concerning the application of para (a) of s 601FS(2) to certain contractual provisions for the payment of fees that can be hypothesised, but at least it is clear that the paragraph does not detract from a former RE's right to retain fees that have been paid to it in satisfaction of a present debt. (One situation that would fall within para (a) would be a promise to pay the former RE at a point of time that, it transpired, post-dated its removal where the payment could be said to be for the performance of functions that occurred prior to its removal.) It must be remembered too that para (a) is in the nature of an exception or carving out: the primary operative provision is found in s 601FS(1).
39 Under para (c) of cl 6.3 of the Project 1 Grove Agreement and of cl 5.3 of the Project 2 Grove Agreement, a debt in favour of AOL came into existence at the commencement of each year. AOL would have been entitled at that time, upon a failure to pay, to sue the Member as for debt and to obtain judgment. AOL would have been entitled, after giving the Member seven days' notice to make the payment and a failure by the Member to comply, to terminate the Grove Agreement under cl 12.3 of the Project 1 Grove Agreement or cl 11.3 of the Project 2 Grove Agreement.
40 As the new RE, Huntley will be entitled to enforce the provision as to payment of fees against Members in relation to future years but this is irrelevant to amounts of fees that were paid to AOL prior to the changeover.
41 Huntley relies on what it describes as a "reductio ad absurdum". It points out that according to AOL's argument, if the fees for the year were paid to an RE on the first day of the year and that RE was removed and replaced as RE on the second day of the year, the new RE would have no fees with which to perform its obligations under the Grove Agreements - obligations that it must incur at its own expense according to cl 6.5 of the Project 1 Grove Agreement and cl 5.5 of the Project 2 Grove Agreement. In the same vein, it could be suggested to be absurd that the former RE should have an entitlement to a full year's fee for only one day's work. With respect, the answer to this submission is that it was for the Members and Huntley to take such considerations into account before the Members resolved to remove AOL and to appoint Huntley, and Huntley agreed to accept the appointment.
42 Huntley relied on cl 29.3 of the Project 1 Trust Deed (see [29] above) but I do not think that that provision shows that apportionment was contemplated. It provides only, in effect, that when the Trustee acted as manager, it was entitled to receive the same fees that would have been receivable by a separate entity filling the role of manager.
43 I do not think that cl 31.3 of the Project 1 Trust Deed (cl 7.3 of the Project 2 Constitution) affects the position. That provision is concerned with the failure of the RE to perform its role "properly", meaning up to standard. It is not suggested for present purposes that AOL did not properly perform its role as RE during the part of the year down to the changeover. It was deprived of the ability to perform its role at all during the remainder of that year by reason of the Members' decision to remove AOL and, indirectly, Huntley's decision to accept appointment as RE in its place.
44 Finally, if Huntley had an entitlement to be paid fees for the post-changeover part of the year, that would be a right against the Members. The Members might wish to make a third party claim against AOL (I say nothing of the prospects of success of such a claim), but that is another matter.
45 I turn now to consider the fees for the changeover year that were paid to Huntley. AOL relies on s 601FS(2)(a) of the Act which provides that despite subs (1) of s 601FS, the following remains a right of the former RE:
any right of the former responsible entity to be paid fees for the performance of its functions before it ceased to be the responsible entity
The parties debated the interesting question of the proper construction of this paragraph: does it refer to a performance of functions prior to the changeover or to a right to be paid fees that arose prior to the changeover?
46 I am not required to decide this question for present purposes because even assuming in favour of AOL that the latter construction is correct, this would not mean that AOL would be entitled to recover from Huntley fees for the year that the Members paid to Huntley in respect of the various Projects. There is no evidence that the Members did not intend to pay Huntley or that Huntley has intercepted and appropriated to itself payments that they intended to make to AOL. In the absence of the Members or a representative of them as parties, I am not at liberty to bring about a situation in which Huntley is deprived of the money that the Members intended it should have.
47 Any remedy available to AOL is against the Members. It can sue them for debt, contending that it is no defence that they paid the wrong RE. Again, the Members might decide to make a third party claim against Huntley (and again, I say nothing of the prospects of success of such a claim).
48 It is necessary now to refer to s 232 of the Property Law Act, subss (1) and (2) of which were set out at [35] above. There is a threshold question that I raised on the hearing but need not decide. This is whether the present fees payable for services to be rendered by the RE throughout the year fall within the expression "rents, annuities, dividends, and other periodical payments in the nature of income…" within s 232(1) or are "like interest on money lent" within that provision. I raised with the parties the possibility that the payments to which the statutory provision refers are limited to those that are passively "earned" by nothing more than the passing of time so that it is appropriate to conceive of them as accruing evenly from day to day. The argument would be that the management fees in the present case are not earned evenly from day to day because the RE's services for which the fees are paid are uneven, and vary according to time of the year and other circumstances.
49 Be this as it may, in my opinion s 232 of the Property Law Act does not require an apportionment in favour of Huntley for the following reasons.
50 First, authority establishes that the statutory provision has no application where, as in the case of Projects 1 and 2, payment is made in advance: see Ellis v Rowbotham [1900] 1 QB 740 at 743, 744; The Australian Guarantee Corporation Limited v Balding (1930) 43 CLR 140 at 152-154 per Isaacs J; Amad v Grant; Grosglik v Grant (1947) 74 CLR 327 at 338 per Latham CJ (as noted in AOL's submissions, Dixon J (as his Honour then was) at 346 also cited Ellis v Rowbotham with apparent approval of it as supporting the present proposition at 346); Karacominakis v Big Country Developments Pty Ltd [2000] NSWCA 313; (2000) 10 BPR 18,235 at [147].
51 Second, even if the apportionment provision did apply, that would be a matter relevant to the rights and obligations as between Huntley and the Members, not as between Huntley and AOL.
52 In view of the conclusion reached by me above, I need not address in relation to Projects 1 and 2 the question of the point of time (resolution of the Members or recording of the change by ASIC) as at which any apportionment would have to be made in respect of those Projects.