Every six months, NCAT's Guardianship Division publishes a Case Digest, a curated summary of significant decisions involving financial management orders, guardianship orders, medical consent, and enduring power of attorney reviews. Quietly circulated to legal practitioners, aged care providers, and ...

When you sell or lease a property in Australia, there are already many things you are legally required to disclose: zoning, encumbrances, defects in title, building work history. Within the next few years, energy efficiency is set to join that list for residential properties across the country inclu...

Every year, Australian retirees and their families make financial decisions that intersect, often unknowingly, with Centrelink's deprivation rules. A parent helps a child with a house deposit. A grandparent pays for a family holiday. An elderly widow sends money to her children overseas so they can ...

Most business owners spend a great deal of time planning for growth, new clients, new staff, new revenue. Very few spend equivalent time planning for incapacity. Yet the sudden or gradual loss of mental capacity by a director or key shareholder is one of the most disruptive events that can befall a ...

Say the word “easement” to most property owners and they will picture a right of carriageway the shared driveway to a battle-axe block or an easement for drainage, sewer or electricity running under the backyard. These everyday easements are the ones that show up on title searches and in conveyanc...

When people think about “getting their affairs in order," they usually think about a will, a document that speaks only after they die. But a will does nothing while you are alive. If you lose the ability to make decisions for yourself through dementia, a stroke, or a sudden illness, a will cannot ...

A commercial lease is often signed with a handshake and a sense of relief that the deal is done. But the document that is filed away can come back to bite either party years even decades later, when the relationship has changed hands and the original intentions are a distant memory. The wording of...

For many homeowners in the Sutherland Shire, the water view is the whole point – the reason a property was bought and a large part of what it is worth. So it is a genuine grievance when a neighbour’s row of trees, left to grow unchecked, quietly swallows the view of the bay. Can anything be done? ...

Borrowing against property is one of the most common transactions in Australia from a family home loan to a multi-million dollar commercial facility. Most of the time the arrangement runs its course without incident. But when a borrower cannot repay, the consequences can be swift and severe: a mor...

Families make promises about property all the time. “Move in and look after the place it’ll be yours one day.” “Do the renovations, and you can live here as long as you like.” These assurances are usually made with real affection and every intention of following through. But intentions change, cir...

When a family member is left out of a will or left with less than they believe is fair, the natural focus is on the merits: was the provision adequate? What were the deceased’s obligations? Who needs what? But there is a second question that is every bit as important and far too often pushed to th...

It is one of the most common questions an estate planning lawyer hears: “Can I move my assets into a trust, or into my son’s name, so that a particular child can’t make a claim when I’m gone? The instinct is understandable; parents want certainty that their wishes will be followed and that a strai...