If you are a director or former director of a company and the company does not meet its pay as you go (PAYG) withholding, goods and services tax (GST) or super guarantee charge (SGC) obligations, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) may recover those amounts from you personally. This means the ATO i...

There are special rules that apply to commercial leases that fall within the definition of being a “retail lease”.  Under the Retail Leases Act 1994 (NSW), landlords must, amongst other things, comply with strict deadlines for providing various notices to their tenants.  It is therefore imperative t...

The responsibility for the payment of the costs of the water usage and electricity for a Kirrawee commercial property was the subject of a dispute dealt with by the District Court in 2017 – AAP Engineering Pty Ltd v Fernlog Pty Ltd [2017] NSWDC 141.

The tenant, Fernlog, leased a portion of the prop...

When an agent is entering into a contract on behalf of a company, all parties to the contract should take particular care to ensure that the contract is executed properly, making it legally binding and enforceable.  Particular attention should also be given to the agent themselves, as it is importan...

All business owners and agents must be careful when providing prospective purchasers with sales figures and other information, particularly where reliance will be placed on that information, without separate verification by the prospective purchaser. This issue arose in a December 2019 decision by t...

What is the best option when leasing commercial properties?

It is now standard practice when acting for landlords in commercial leasing, to request some kind of security from the tenant, typically a bank guarantee or security deposit in the form of a cash bond, and where applicable personal guarant...

• Do you have employees in your business?
• Are they expected to work outside of their set hours?
• Do you know what the law says in relation to this kind of overtime?

The Fair Work Commission has ordered an employer to pay eight weeks’ wages to an apprentice who was found to have been unfairly dis...

In a judgment handed down by the Federal Court in January 2020, Trivago, popular hotel comparison website, has been found guilty of misleading and deceiving the public as to the operation of its website. The misrepresentations have led consumers to believe they were obtaining discounts when, in real...

If you are planning on selling your business, and are being assisted by a solicitor, you will inevitably be asked for business documentation and history.

We regularly meet our clients once they have already accepted an offer on the business and are needing their contract prepared. More often than n...

As an employer, it is important that when you hire new employees, and as their employment changes, you set out clearly – and in writing – your expectations of them, and their responsibilities. Not only will this assist in managing expectations, but it may be important to clarify each party’s obligat...

In order to make a claim for unfair dismissal, one of the pre-conditions to be satisfied is that the employee must have served the statutory minimum employment period – for those engaged by a “small business employer”, the minimum period is 12 months.  For others, it is 6 months.

A small business e...

A Heads of Agreement (also known as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or Letter of Intent (LOI)) is a document outlining the proposed agreement between the parties to it. There are a number of commercial situations where a Heads of Agreement will be commonly prepared between the parties – for exam...