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If you are owed child support payments from your ex-partner and are not satisfied with the actions and any delays taken by the Child Support Agency (CSA), we can help you.

Generally, it is CSA which should take actions to collect the child support payments for you.  But in our experience, even a case on their priory list was not handled promptly from the client’s point of view.

We can contact and deal with CSA on your behalf and chase the child support debt against your ex-partner through the Courts.  Our standard procedure is to obtain judgment against your ex-partner and apply for his/her bankruptcy.

Our costs for the first step of obtaining default judgment start from $1,500 plus GST plus disbursements.

There are various other ways to enforce the judgment than bankruptcy such as garnishee order, attachment order against wages and CSA’s overseas travel bans but we find that the bankruptcy application (or its threat) quite often brings about the desired outcome quickly.

Our costs for the second step of applying for bankruptcy start from $3,000 plus GST plus disbursements.

If you require our assistance, please contact us for a confidential discussion.

You should think carefully before you sign any business purchase contract and pay over your  hard earned cash as deposit to the all-knowing vendor.  Better still, you should seek advices.  Don’t be pressured into this just because the vendor or their agent says a number of things.  If anything, it should be your independent judgment on how urgently you should take an action (and this self assurance comes after careful research of the market and trusted advices).

There are many things that you should be mindful of, including:

1. Are you paying the market price?
2. How well do you know the area?
3. How well do you know the business?
4. Is there valid lease in place?  There should be a sufficient lease term left to run with a couple of options (to renew the lease).
5. Are there relevant permits and licenses for this business?

It is often the last item that people overlook.  From the purchaser’s point of view, the local Council would be the first point of call in trying to verify whether there is required permits for the business to operate out of the premises.  There are two separate considerations: first, permits for the premises (e.g. food premises, take away shop, physiotherapy, etc) and second, license for you to carry out the activities (e.g. food hygiene, physiotherapist, accountant etc).  All these need to be satisfied.

The service provided by the government, called ABLIS search can provide you with a very good starting point in relation to considerations that you should give in starting or buying any businesses.

If there is no permit in place, there is potential for significant damage/disruption to your business including fines, costs of DA (development application), loss of income etc.  Therefore, it is vital that you check this even before signing any contract.  If there is any issue, you must require the vendor to remedy the problems.

The above advice is not intended to be comprehensive but is provided only for your reference.  You should seek (professional) advices.

Section 10 dismissal is one of the many sentences that the NSW Courts can give to an offender under Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999. The sentences can include:

1. Custodial sentences: full-time imprisonment, intensive correction orders and home detention;
2. Non-custodial penalties include suspended sentences, community service orders, good behaviour bonds, dismissals of charges and conditional discharges (s 10), fine and convictions with no other penalties (s 10A convictions).

Generally, the term, section 10, is used to mean that the offender has pleaded guilty or has been found guilty by the court but no conviction is recorded against her. Section 10 can sometimes be accompanied by section 10 bond (good behaviour bond) for a period of time so that in the event that the offender reoffends during the period for good behavior bond, he will be resentenced on this offence for which he received section 10. If this happens, he is likely to be convicted.

There are many factors that impact on whether an offender will receive section 10. The more significant ones would be:

1. Any prior criminal/traffic record
2. Type and seriousness of the offence
3. Any plausible reason for committing the offence
4. The need for section 10

In 2010, the statistics show that the offenders were sentenced as follows:

1. Section 10 dismissal with or without bond: 18.6%
2. Section 10A conviction: 1.7%
3. Fine: 43.7%
4. Section 9 bond: 19.8%
5. Community Services Order: 3.9%
6. Suspended sentence: 4.8%
7. Intensive Corrective Order: 0.1%
8. Home Detention: 0.2%
9. Prison: 6.9%

 

One way of dealing with stress of litigation is to compartmentalise tasks in your head.  An extreme example of this is when someone has multiple personalities and is not aware of what her other personalities are doing or thinking.  However, a mild and balanced adoption of compartmentalisation may benefit you and indeed is a hallmark of some successful people.

It also explains why some bilingual speakers can speak either language without apparent accent.  The answer seems to lie in developing a new personality when you learn to speak a new language.  Each language is a manifestation of a unique culture.  For example, an English speaker in America would find it very difficult to adopt Australian accent (some Australians would deny that they have an accent).  The Australian accent reflects its culture of easy going and relaxed personalities.  Therefore, it requires the vocal muscles to be completely relaxed when speaking.

A more common example of mental compartmentalisation is when you are required to work in a profession.  It is quite apparent that a professional is sometimes required to act in a certain way and even expected to do so.  This may not agree with your personalities so you are then given a choice.  Will you or will you not conform to the perceived standard?  If you develop the ability to compartmentalise everything to do your profession, you will not be restricted by your own personalities that you had developed in your private, family and social life.  Your professional personality may also share some common ground with your private personality so far as they are useful but you will be free to develop and acquire new skills and behaviour that would be necessary to succeed in your profession.

This applies to dealing with any litigation or other problems that you may become involved in.  As soon as you mentally disconnect these from your own personalities, your heavy load should immediately or gradually reduce.  This is because you do not see the problem as an attack on your personally any longer.  Things become more objective and you will begin to focus more on how to resolve them.  This should also bring some relief when you switch to focus on your personal life since you are not in the zone of having to deal with those problems.  You leave it to the next time you come to deal with them.

The article below demonstrates the extreme case of a patient having multiple personalities mentioned above.

Download the article: Woman was blind for 17 years – then one of her other personalities started to see

Or, try the link