Blog

Child Relocation

 

One of the most challenging aspects of a relationship breakdown is where there are children, and one parent wants to relocate to another location, which will impact on the parental rights of the other parent. 

 

Relocation claims by one parent with a child have two key aspects, what is the best interest of the child and can the parent establish supportive grounds for the relocation. Section 60CC of the Family Law Act 1975 provides that each parent has a presumption of shared parenting. The court in assessing cases will consider the best interest of the child where there is a parent displaced by distance: section 60B of the Act. 

 

The Family Court does not have the power to restrict where a parent should live. However, the court does h

John Melis Apr 22, 2019 03:07 PM

Trusting your lender

Property purchaser's generally, require finance for the property transaction. Finance is usually arranged through a broker or directly with the lender. The prudent property purchaser before commencing this search for the property will seek out loan approval from their financier. 

 

Risk mitigation needs to occur at this point. The best way to describe the risk where lending is needed is by the case of Box v Midland Bank Ltd [1979] 2 Lloyd’s Reps 391, 395. The applicant, in this case, sought finance from the lender. The bank manager explained to the applicant certain conditions for the loan need to be met and that arranging finance was just a formality. The applicant then relied on the bank managers comments and entered into contracts. The bank then refused to settle on the agreements

John Melis Jan 01, 2019 01:21 PM

Lending Promises

 

Generally, most property purchasers require some form of finance. The prudent purchaser before attending an auction or signing a contract of sale will obtain finance approval from the lender in advance. However, what can happen, unfortunately, is that where a purchaser considers that they have obtained finance approval and paid a deposit, the lender then says, finance has not been approved. Today this situation is becoming common, and the purchaser needs to be aware of how to minimise a lender withdrawing their support prior to settlement.


Every purchaser to a contract should appreciate that where they do not meet the settlement conditions with paying the final amount due on the day of settlement, a breach-of-contract will occur, and the vendor may sue the purchaser for their losses. Now,

John Melis Dec 28, 2018 09:50 AM

Co-owners of Property

 

Property investment in the last 10 years has been the boom topic around Australia. However, when real estate starts to take at turn, investors in all forms consider selling. One major issue which always arises, is when one co-owner to a property investment wants to sell out and recoup their funds and the other co-owner does not want to sell, how does that issue get resolved? 

 

Where disputes arise between co-owners of property, such as tenants in common noted on title, which is usually the case with investment properties, the best outcome to resolve the issues, where two co-owners say Party A & Party B, is that Party A sells out their share in ownership of the property to Party B.

 

If the co-owners agree with this method of selling, w

John Melis Oct 24, 2018 12:54 PM

Easements

One of the main considerations that should be taken into account with property transactions is whether easements are attached to the property. 

 

An easement that attaches to a property provides a right to another person to access that easement. A common easement that is on land, is a storm water drain. This could run down the side of the property or at the rear.


Easements are created by statue, express grant or reservation; implied grant or reservation and prescription. Generally, as most land is Torrens land, an easement is created through the lodgement and registration of an approved form with the land registry of the state. Once the easement is registered, the land that is burdened with the easement will automatically transfer between owners of the property. So a new

John Melis Aug 26, 2018 10:38 PM

Mental Harm

One of the common claims people often raise following a stressful incident is mental harm. Such injury claim could result from defective building work, or bullying in the workplace, or being at the scene of an accident which as caused a recognised psychiatric illness.

 

Mental harm is the result of trauma which impacts on the individual psychologically, biologically and cultural and socially.

 

The psychological responses have various phases: 

 


the outcry where fear, sadness, rage occurs; 



denial where the person refuses to face the memory of the event; 



the intrusion into the mind where thoughts of the event come back;

John Melis May 25, 2018 08:17 PM

Passports & Children

Everyone likes a holiday but when it is overseas and includes family members who are minor with no passport, difficulties may arise. When a passport is required for a child under the age of 18 years, that passport application requires the consent of both parents or a court order. The purpose of this law is to protect the child from being permanently removed from Australia. 

 

Where a parent and the court do not provide their consent for a passport, under section 11(2) of the Australian Passports Act (Cth) the minister may issue a passport for the child in the absence of parental or court consent where there are exceptional circumstances. This situation may include issuing a passport for the child to avoid adversely affecting the child’s welfare (physically or psychologically) or

John Melis Mar 20, 2018 08:14 PM

Consumer Payment Risks

 

Every consumer who transacts with an online payment to another party’s bank account for goods or services that exceeds an amount greater than $1,000 should raise the question, are the bank account numbers correct to which the payment is to be made! 

 

There are several aspects of fraud and some of these include, obtaining property by deception, obtaining financial advantage by deception, false accounting, falsification of documents, fraudulently inducing a person to invest.  

 

One of the developing fraudulent conducts that are more regularly occurring today involves data penetration and utilisation of that information. The purpose of this hack is to manipulate information from that account to commit deception, by using that pers

John Melis Jan 21, 2018 11:03 AM

Property Economic Loss

 

Financial loss is common in the property industry, whether the market is in an upward trend or downward one. Where commercial property activities for profit are being undertaken, such as renovating or building, one of the heads of damages that may be considered in a claim is economic loss. Economic loss is one which is financial, such as the diminution in the value of the property or loss of profits. 

 

Let’s assume a property owner engages an architect to design footings to a dwelling, which results in the construction subsiding. In this instance the architect will be liable to the owner under the contract for damages for breach of the express or implied term that the design would be completed in accordance with the skill of a reasonable architect. The property owne

John Melis Oct 15, 2017 12:52 PM

Is this my child?

 

One of the arguments by a parent in the refusal to pay child support is that they are not the parent that is responsible for those payments under the Family Law Act 1975. Who would think that a parent would deny a child’s right. Well, it does happen! However, there are occasions where a parent has wrongly been required to pay child support, these situations are limited but do occur. 

 

The Family Law Act contains five statutory presumptions of parentage and they do not cover every circumstance. Though each of these presumptions may be rebutted by proof on the balance of probabilities. 

 

Presumption 1. 

 

Where a woman gives birth to a child within 44 weeks of a marriage being annulled or ter

John Melis Aug 23, 2017 02:41 PM