The applicant's submissions
22 As noted above, the applicant's written submissions differed somewhat from the grounds identified in her application. They were made under the following headings:
(a) Trustee's case;
(b) Evidence: it was up to the Trustee to prove his case;
(c) The Appeal; and
(d) The Balance of Convenience (which were submissions on the stay).
23 Additionally, the applicant submitted on laches, and whether the primary judge was entitled to grant the relief on the exercise of liberty to apply granted to the respondent.
24 As to the "Trustee's Case" argument, the main basis of the applicant's affidavit and submissions on this point can be summarised as follows. The "trustee's case" was that "the whole $1,480,000 was secured by the Ocean Street property". The respondent was entitled to a transfer of the Ocean Street property, but did not exercise that right, and because the mortgage was in default, the bank obtained possession of the Ocean Street property. The claim that the trustee had an "equitable charge" over the Francis Street property was "false".
25 Ms Stolyar characterised the process by which BABL took possession of the Ocean Street property as the respondent having "given up his right to the property". Ms Stolyar cited the transcript of questions asked by the primary judge as to the role of the trustee and why the bank was not appearing in the proceedings, given the existence of the Supreme Court of NSW proceedings before Lonergan J. The passage from the transcript was that before the primary judge on 22 August 2024 at page 16 where her Honour asked the following question of Mr Golledge SC who there appeared for the respondent:
HER HONOUR: I don't understand why the bank isn't here, quite frankly.
MR GOLLEDGE: It's clear from what's happened in the Supreme Court, the bank, with respect, is taking the line of least resistance. There was no defence to an order that possession be taken of Ocean Street, for frankly obvious reasons. It's Mrs Stolyar's preference that that be sold, because she no longer has any entitlement to that property. And the bank, seeking to, no doubt, act in its own best interest, has taken up that opportunity - taken that course, because it will produce a relatively large sum of money and will reduce a large part but not all of its debt. And unfortunately, that's a matter for the bank. We wouldn't be in a position to require it to marshal against the other property.
26 Ms Stolyar pointed to her Honour's question as an indication that the Bank should have appeared and been subject to questioning by her (or her son) in those proceedings, and the failure of the Bank to appear was not procedurally fair to her.
27 In relation to the "Evidence" point, Ms Stolyar said in her affidavit that "the [respondent] failed to provide any evidence and the Court made its judgment without evidence, hence I feel that I was not provided with Procedural Fairness". The lack of evidence is said to be that she was unable to cross-examine a representative from the bank.
28 Ms Stolyar submitted that because the bank was a party to the primary proceedings, but took no active role, there was "some kind of a relationship" between the bank and the respondent, and that there were "some kind of conversations going on". When queried as to the relevance of this, Mr Stolyar said he was saying it "in a negative way" and that the net result was that "Ms Stolyar couldn't cross-examine the bank on what the loan was or why - you know, why these things happened, to give [the primary judge] a bit more understanding of how everything was structured".
29 The "structure" argument was, as I could discern it, as follows. First, there was (on the basis of a table annexed to Ms Stolyar's affidavit as Annexure A) around $500,000 equity in the Ocean Street property after $700,000 was allocated for the BABL mortgage. I pause here to note that the provenance of this document was described as being prepared by the respondent, in 2020, when there was a discussion about the sale of another property in the Stolyar portfolio. It appears from its terms to be a document prepared for some kind of settlement or other arrangement as it includes figures put forward by both the respondent and by Ms Stolyar.
30 Second, the trustee should have sold the Ocean Street property and taken the equity in it, and "that would have left the bank with only one property against whatever the mortgage was left there". Third, there was "no evidence" before the primary judge as to why BABL proceeded against the Ocean Street property when two properties were secured by its mortgage. Fourth, the respondent "blamed the bank" for taking proceedings "in its own best interest".
31 Ms Stolyar was insistent that had the respondent sold the Ocean Street property, the bank would have been content with a partial discharge of $720,000 and would have been content to leave the balance of the mortgage secured against the Francis Street property. In her affidavit, Ms Stolyar said that the equity in Ocean Street "would have fully repaid the $520,000, the value of the property at the time of the transfer in 2013 plus interest". No evidence was provided in relation to the assertion that the bank should or would be satisfied with such a partial discharge, apart from a reference to paragraph [459] of Stolyar (No 1) sent by Mr Stolyar to the Registry after judgment was reserved and without leave to provide further submissions. I have therefore not had regard to this, but note however that her Honour's reference to a partial discharge of the Ocean Street property as security for a different loan, by a different bank, does not prove the point Ms Stolyar sought to make.
32 In relation to "The Appeal", the short point was that, without the evidence referred to above, the primary judge should not have "published her judgment and orders without evidence and believes a miscarriage of justice has occurred".
33 As to "The Balance of Convenience", Ms Stolyar relied on her need for somewhere to live, or alternatively her need for the income from the property to provide her with an income. She relied on her affidavit of 23 September 2024 which set out that the rent from Francis Street ($3,324 per month) paid for her medications, her "current lodgings and living expenses", and set out her health conditions. Obviously a stay would only be relevant were the applicant to be successful in a grant of leave to appeal.
34 Additionally, the argument as to laches was put on the following basis:
MR STOLYAR: So the trustee was aware at that time in 2020 that there was - first of all, there was a mortgage, and there was equity in the actual property, but for whatever reason, he still decided not to proceed with the thing - with the transfer or with the sale of the property, realising the equity, which was Federal Court orders - orders of Markovic J allowed him to do. So what was left at that time is that the trustee withdrew from the whole of this deal. So what basically happened is it was the bank against Ms Stolyar, and from Ms Stolyar's point of view, it was that the trustee has given up his right to the property. He didn't want to be involved in selling the property or discharging the actual debt.
…
And so it went to the Supreme Court, your Honour, and Supreme Court Lonergan J, after listening to Ms Stolyar's evidence, has basically said, okay, the trustee is not involved in this, you sure you want to know about the - I mean, she was given the trustee's orders, she knew all about it, she said, "Look, the trustee doesn't want to have anything to do with it, it's against Ms Stolyar, and Ms Stolyar's argument was that the sale of Ocean Street property would be enough to clear the whole debt. And she agreed with that, and she made orders that only Ocean Street property - sorry, that the bank only take possession of Ocean Street property. From there, the trustee, about two months later, has brought up this application here, your Honour, that we are appealing.
35 On the question of whether the primary judge was entitled to make the orders she did on an exercise of the liberty to apply, the applicant (through Mr Stolyar) put her argument as follows:
It wasn't open to [the primary judge] to - to state that the trustee was … allowed to - to apply for fresh orders under liberty to apply. And also, for the - as to regard to the Francis Street property. Francis Street property was never part of any claim by the trustee. It was not part of the judgment. It's a property which is outside of all the realms of all the claims. And Francis Street property has got its own - its own mortgage, its own debt. Its own life, basically.
(edited slightly for clarity)