From: Steve Hedley
Sent: Tuesday 7 July 2026 17:40
To: obligations
Subject: RE: Settled Understanding
of the Law in NZ
It's not my bailiwick so I'm probably wrong, but how about s 74A of the Property Law Act 2007 (inserted by s 6 of the Property Law Amendment Act 2016):
74A - Recovery of payments made under mistake of law
(1) If relief in respect of any payment that has been made under mistake is sought in any court (whether in civil proceedings or by way of defence, set-off, counterclaim, or otherwise) and that relief could be granted if the mistake were wholly one of fact, that relief must not be denied by reason only that the mistake is one of law, whether or not it is in any degree also one of fact.
(2) Nothing in this section enables relief to be given in respect of any payment made at a time when the law required, or allowed, or was commonly understood to require or allow, the payment to be made or enforced, by reason only that the law was subsequently changed or shown not to have been as it was commonly understood to have been at the time of the payment.
Steve Hedley
From: Duncan Sheehan <D.K.Sheehan@leeds.ac.uk>
Sent: Tuesday 7 July 2026 17:11
To: obligations <obligations@uwo.ca>
Subject: Settled Understanding of the Law in NZ
A question
mostly for the New Zealanders. Section 94A of the old Judicature Act 1908 (NZ)
provided for a settled understanding of the law defence in cases of mistaken
payments. I know that the entire Act was repealed as part of an overhaul of the
judicial system in the Senior Courts Act 2016, but the NZ Law Commission
recommended that sections 94A-B be retained and put in a new commercial law
statute. I can't find any trace of it though in the Contract and Commercial Law
Act 2017. Did the provisions just get repealed and never re-enacted? And if so,
was that by accident or design?
Duncan
Professor Duncan Sheehan
Director of Centre for Business Law & Practice
School of Law
University of Leeds
Leeds
LS2 9JT