Soft Technology JR Limited v Jones Lang Lasalle Limited [2022] NZCA 353

Weber v Hastings District Council [2022] NZHC 1405

The New Zealand courts have recently had their say on two significant aspects of the law relating to real estate agents.

The Court of Appeal’s decision in Soft Technology JR Limited v Jones Lang Lasalle Limited [2022] NZCA 353 concerned a commission dispute. It represents a change in the law and reinforces for real estate agents the critical importance of ensuring that they have robust processes in place to discharge their client care obligations.

In Weber v Hastings District Council [2022] NZHC 1405, the High Court struck out the purchasers’ misrepresentation claims on the basis that the real estate agents had merely acted as a conduit for the information provided by the vendors. The Weber case serves as a useful reminder of the principles applicable to the ‘mere conduit’ defence.

In this alert, Sophie Lucas, Natasha Cannon, Jeremy Thomson and Giulia Wiesmann explain why these decisions are a useful reminder about the importance of having appropriate processes in place to mitigate the risk of making errors of omission or inadvertent misleading statements.

Read the case alert in full below.