New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CONVEYANCING ACT 1919 - SECT 183

183 Punishing of vendor for fraudulent concealment of deeds or falsifying pedigree

(1) Any seller or mortgagor of any property conveyed or assigned to a purchaser or mortgagee, or the solicitor or agent of any such seller or mortgagor, who, after the commencement of this Act, conceals any settlement, deed, will, or other instrument material to the title, or any incumbrance from the purchaser or mortgagee, or falsifies any pedigree upon which the title does or may depend, in order to induce the purchaser or mortgagee to accept the title offered or produced to the purchaser or mortgagee, with intent in any of such cases to defraud, shall be guilty of an indictable offence, and, being found guilty, shall be liable, at the discretion of the Supreme Court, to suffer such punishment by fine or imprisonment for any time not exceeding two years or by both, as the Court awards, and shall also be liable to proceedings for damages at the suit of the purchaser or mortgagee, or those claiming under the purchaser, or mortgagee, for any loss sustained by them, or either or any of them, in consequence of the settlement, deed, will, or other instrument or incumbrance so concealed, or of any claim made by any person under such pedigree, but whose right was concealed by the falsification of such pedigree.

(2) In estimating such damages where the estate is recovered from such purchaser or mortgagee, or from those claiming under the purchaser or mortgagee, regard shall be had to any expenditure by them, or either or any of them, in improvements on the land.

(3) No prosecution for any offence included in this section against any seller or mortgagor, or any solicitor or agent, shall be commenced without the sanction of His Majesty's Attorney-General or Solicitor-General.

(4) No such sanction shall be given without previous notice of the application for leave to prosecute to the person intended to be prosecuted in such form as the Attorney-General or the Solicitor-General directs.