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Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Contracts legislation - Contractual mistakes

28: Nature of relief

You could also call this:

“Explaining how a court can fix problems with contracts”

If the court has the power to grant relief based on sections 24 to 26, it can make any order it thinks is fair. This means the court can do several things to help fix a problem with a contract.

The court can say the contract is still valid, either completely or for a specific reason. It can also cancel the contract if needed. Sometimes, the court might change parts of the contract to make it fairer. The court can also order that someone gets money or property back to make things right.

When the court makes an order, it can decide who owns property related to the contract. It can tell someone to give property to someone else or to let someone else use the property.

In this law, ‘party’ means someone involved in the court case. ‘Relevant property’ means any property that was part of the contract or was used to pay for something in the contract.

The court can add any extra rules or conditions to its order that it thinks are necessary to make things fair.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6844083.

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27: Mistake caused by party seeking relief, or

"When you make a mistake in a contract, the court looks at how much it was your fault"

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29: Court may grant relief to person claiming through or under party, or

"Court can help people connected to someone in a contract"

Part 2 Contracts legislation
Contractual mistakes

28Nature of relief

  1. If, under sections 24 to 26, the court has power to grant relief, the court may make any order that it thinks just.

  2. In particular, but without limiting subsection (1), the court may do 1 or more of the following things:

  3. declare the contract to be valid and subsisting in whole or in part or for any particular purpose:
    1. cancel the contract:
      1. grant relief by way of variation of the contract:
        1. grant relief by way of restitution or compensation.

          1. The court may, by an order made under this section,—

          2. vest the whole or any part of any relevant property in a party; or
            1. direct a party to transfer or assign the whole or any part of any relevant property to any other party; or
              1. direct a party to deliver the whole or any part of the possession of any relevant property to any other party.

                1. In subsection (3),—

                  party means a party to the proceeding

                    relevant property means real or personal property that was the subject of the contract or was the whole or part of the consideration for the contract.

                    1. An order may be made on the terms and conditions that the court thinks fit.

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