Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Contracts legislation - Frustrated contracts - Money paid or payable

62: Court may allow party who has incurred expenses to retain or recover money

You could also call this:

“Court can let you keep or get back money you spent on an unfinished job”

If you’ve spent money to do something as part of a contract, but the contract ends before you finish, the court might let you keep or get back some of that money. This can happen if the court thinks it’s fair, based on everything that’s going on. But remember, you can’t keep or get back more money than you actually spent. The court will look at all the details of your situation to decide what’s right.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6844141.


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61: Money paid may be recovered and money payable ceases to be payable, or

"You can get back money you already paid and don't have to pay money you owed when a contract ends"


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63: Sum may be recovered if party has obtained valuable benefit, or

"You might have to pay back money if you got something valuable from an agreement that ended early"

Part 2 Contracts legislation
Frustrated contracts: Money paid or payable

62Court may allow party who has incurred expenses to retain or recover money

  1. This section applies if the party to whom the money was paid or payable under the contract incurred expenses before the time of discharge in, or for the purpose of, performing the contract.

  2. The court may, if it considers it just to do so having regard to all the circumstances, allow the party to retain or recover the whole or any part of the money that was paid or payable.

  3. However, the amount to be retained or recovered must not exceed the expenses that were incurred.

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