When can you lodge a caveat over land?

The word “caveat” means beware.

The lodging of a caveat over a property is the means by which you warn anyone who wants to deal with the property to be aware of the fact that someone else already has an interest in it.

There are a variety of circumstances in which you may be in a position to lodge a caveat – a “caveatable interest”.

The right to lodge a caveat exists if you can demonstrate that you have a direct interest in a particular parcel of land by way of having contributed to its purchase, maintenance, upkeep or on account of having some other entitlement to the land by way of an agreement or a promise by the owner on which you have relied and acted upon.

If you have a formal written loan agreement in place including a term of that loan agreement that you have the entitlement to take a charge over the borrower’s Certificate of Title to the land, you are able to lodge a caveat over land in respect to the loan agreement because the loan agreement gives you a right and interest in the land.

Only a person who has a caveatable interest is entitled to lodge a caveat or to instruct their lawyer to lodge a caveat on their behalf. We recommend that you have the caveat lodged by a lawyer so that advice can be provided as to whether a caveatable interest actually exists.

A caveat should be lodged as soon as a caveatable interest is acquired.

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