Sarah was organising her 21st birthday to take place at her parents' home in Pearl Beach. Her parents have a contract with a private security company, CentraGuard, under which CentraGuard provides occasional surveillance of the house and undertakes to respond within half an hour if the home security alarm becomes triggered. Sarah calls CentraGuard to tell them about the party. She also tells them that some recent parties in the Central Coast had experienced problems with gate crashers and asks if CentraGuard would be able to help her avoid these problems. CentraGuard's representative tells Sarah that they provide occasional surveillance and respond to the security alarm, but for any party security services she would have to pay extra. Sarah agrees to pay $5000 for CentraGuard to send a patrol car to call in periodically during the night of the party. There were no incidents during the party, though Sarah never noticed a CentraGuard patrol car call in during the whole night. CentraGuard are demanding payment, while Sarah is refusing to pay. Whether there is a good consideration and form a contract? Advise Sarah.

Question 2

In January 2019, Sondra signed a five-year lease with Westfeld for her hair and nail salon Minnie's in their mega-mall at Newtown. However, it soon became clear that the salon would not make the profit that Sondra expected to make due to the low foot traffic in the centre. Sondra contacted Westfeld to discuss this issue indicating that without a rent reduction Minnie's would not be able to continue to trade due to losses. After some heated discussion, on 1 June 2019 Westfeld agreed in writing to reduce the rent by 40%, the figure that Sondra suggested, for the remainder of the lease's term. Sondra has paid the reduced rent by the due date each month. In fact, the rent reduction came in handy when COVID-19 restrictions hit during 2020 and 2021 reducing traffic to the mall and her salon significantly. Following the lifting of all COVID-19 restrictions, with people desperate for haircuts, manicures and pedicures, Minnie's has been doing bumper trade. Westfeld Newtown has not been doing so well. COVID-19 restrictions have reduced retail traffic considerably as people have started buying online. Westfeld has recently sent a letter claiming the rent arrears from Sondra since June 2019. Advise Sondra .

Question 3

Fern Gully Nurseries Pty Ltd (Fern Gully) contracted with Jim Spade trading as Spade Cubbys (Spade) for Spade to construct 20 architecturally designed cubby-houses, with the houses to be completed by 1 October 2019 at a contract price of $20,000, with payment to be made on signing. 1 October 2019 was crucial to Fern Gully as time was required to have the cubby houses painted and decorated prior to the busy Christmas season. By the time it signed the agreement with Spade, Fern Gully had already presold 9 of the 20 cubby-houses to a property developer for $18,000. The property developer required them to be delivered to his site by 15 October 2019 at the latest. Fern Gully planned to sell the remaining cubby-houses to retail customers. Happy with the terms, both parties signed on 15 June 2019 and Fern Gully paid the $20,000 by electronic funds transfer. However, Jim soon realised that he had seriously underquoted on the job. He ran out of money by late August 2019 and it looked as if he wouldn't be able to complete the contract. Jim told Fern Gully of the situation and said that he wasn't able to continue. Fern Gully, aware that it would take longer to have the cubby houses completed if they engaged another builder, and aware that they would lose further business with the developer, suggested to Jim that he should complete the work, in return for which Fern Gully would pay Spade an additional $10,000. Jim accepted this suggestion and Spade completed and delivered the cubby-houses to Fern Gully on 1 October 2019. At that point, Fern Gully refused to pay Spade the $10,000. Advise Jim.