Breach of contract terms by vendor.

Hello folks,

I bought a block of land just a few months ago. As per the terms of contract, the council rates for the block were to be paid by the vendor till the settlement date, and the final settlement was done on the basis of these terms.

As it turns out, the vendor did not pay the last quarter's council fees, and council sent me the bill, which I have to pay now. The amount in question is about $400. When I approached my solicitor about this, he said that the cost of any legal action would be much more than $400 dispute, and suggested that I should just ignore it.

I'm not happy about this, and since this is clearly a breach of contract, I wish to follow-up. Does anyone know what other options I have, which hopefully will not cost more than the amount here? Is there any tribunal that I can approach without hiring a lawyer?

I'm no expert, only bought land twice and sold one house, but at every transaction the solicitors paid all that prioe to releasing the settlement funds. So I can't really understand how this can happen? Maybe the process differs between states?

Sorry, double posts. For some reasons, my reply is not reflected in the previous post

From my experience (I'm in QLD), the contract will state how to calculate the adjustment and will deduct this amount during settlement.

So the reason why this happened was that the settlement happened in March, and council bill comes in July.. the contract had a clause that vendor has paid the council bill till end of June , and when I received the bill in July, I found out they had not paid it...

The new update is that I forced my solicitor to write and follow up with the vendor's solicitor, made million direct phone calls, and warned them abt legal action (wherethey would be liable for my legal fees as well).. so vendor finally gave in and paidthe council charges!

Thank you all of you for your help and time. Really appreciate it!