Current NSW and VIC Court Arrangement

The pandemic affects almost everything and the legal industry is one of them.

Attending court is certainly a people-gathering activity so it has been banned during the pandemic period.

Different courts have their different approaches to deal with the situation.

Below is the useful information:

NSW: 

The NSW law society has a list for all  updates of the court and tribunals in NSW and Federal level which also have a list of the webpages of the relevant courts and tribunals.

A law firm, named as Fourtree Lawyers located Central Coast of NSW, has its opinion here.

VIC: 

The Judicial College of Victoria has created one page to list the coronavirus and the courts which is quite comprehensive and also has link to the courts and tribunals. The page includes almost all jurisdiction in Australia.

General: 

LexisNexis has discussed this issue here.
Justice Connect has its suggestions here.


Fei Wang
2/5/2020

Witness and VOID electronically - Pandemic Measure

The COVID-19 Legislation Amendment (Emergency Measures) Act 2020 (NSW) was passed on 25 March 2020 and Part 4 of this Act enables the regulation maker to make altered arrangements for witness signatures, including requirements for certification of certain matters by witness and verification of identity, provided for by an Act or another law.

More information, see here.

Following above NSW legislation, VIC may pass similar legislation soon. See here.

As the relevant law/Acts have not been altered yet, but the trend is clear: for the limited time period, due to the difficulties of the face to face meeting, the special arrangement may be made to witness affidavits, declaration and other documents which need to be witnessed through electronic method.

Generally speaking, online or web VOID is permitted if the solicitor is satisfied while online or web witness documents would be absolutely prohibited. But during the pandemic time, the ongoing concerns for the health and safety of clients and lawyers have been given to the law maker so that alternative options including electronic systems for witnessing documents and verifying identity have been introduced or temporally accepted.

Prudentia Legal will keep a close eye on this alternative arrangement and every solicitor should make him/herself familiar with the changes.

Fei Wang
Prudentia Legal
20 April 2020

Migration Service Price

Dear colleagues

We have updated our migration service price list and also updated our business migration introduction documents.

You may find the relevant documents here.


FW
16 March 202

Alipay Notice

Dear colleagues

Alipay is one of payment method popular in China and our firm is using this as one of our payment methods.

Due to the Chinese foreign exchange restriction, Alipay has strict rules.

All payments through Alipay must be for legal fees payment purpose, with the support of evidence of costs agreement, payment instruction etc. Otherwise, payments may be denied or the service may be suspended.

Recently we have been audited twice for our Alipay system so that many customers and colleagues recently reported that the Alipay system cannot be used.

Ada is currently talking to the Alipay representative in Australia.

They are speeding up the review process now, however, they cannot guarantee that our payment services will not be affected at this stage.

In addition to Alipay, please offer our client multiple payment methods in case any delays.

You will be notified for the progress of the Alipay arrangement.

Thanks.

Prudentia Legal Management
13/03/2020

Recent Migration Case Good News

Everyone is aware that we are providing migration services.

Working related visas are quite popular in Australia and are part of migration services. 

Working visa, mostly subclass 482 visa, will require three steps: 

1. Employer Sponsorship
2. Employer Nomination & 
3. Employee Visa Application

For the last several years, the second stage becomes harder and harder as the Department of Home Affairs is trying to restrict overseas workers coming to Australia. 

But for the last couple of weeks, we have two successful nomination cases being granted. 

One is for an IT related company. The Nomination was approved within several weeks after we lodged the nomination application while the employee was blocked in China due to the virus outbreak. 

We were confident with the case as the Employer is a quite big company and the employee has been working for this position for a period. The only issue for this case is the salary issue -- because the employee's promised salary might be a little lower than the market salary. But the issue was not challenged by the Department of Home Affairs. 

The second is a very difficult case with a long history. 

The client had been in Australia several years and his last application for working visa (482) was refused based on the refusal of the nomination. The last visa and nomination visa application was prepared by a lousy migration agent who did not prepare sufficient information and evidence. 

After we have been retained by the client, we did extensive research and careful planning, and also prepare and/or collect all relevant documents. The nomination was lodged on this Monday, 9 March 2020. It was granted today, 4 days later. It is record-breaking. The client is very happy while we are preparing his visa application. 

We provide professional legal service to our client whose satisfaction is our goal. 

FW 

12/03/2020

New landholder duty webinars VIC SRO

VIC SRO is running a new three part webinar series on landholder duty in March, covering: Landholder provisions, including changes that came into effect in June 2019 Valuations Acquisitions of interest in a landholder When a liability arises How to lodge and pay Calculating duty Concessions and exemptions Registration of unit trusts Common administrative issues All our webinars are free. Book your spot today. Revised revenue rulings VIC SRO is seeking feedback on two updated landholder revenue rulings: Obligations on making a relevant acquisition and duty calculation (DA-055v2) Acquisitions of interests in a landholder (DA-056v2) Please send feedback, including suggestions to improve clarity, to consultation@sro.vic.gov.au by 5pm on Thursday 26 March 2020.

NSW eDuties

Please note that recently NSW Revenue Office has tried to change paper-based stamp duty application including stamp duty refund application to the online system.

We have created our organization account with the NSW eDuties platform.

Some of the solicitors and key persons have been invited to join the platform and if you have received the invitation letter, please follow the instruction and set up your account.

If you have not received an invitation but you may need to do stamp duty online for NSW properties, please notify one of the administrators and you will be granted one access.

Currently, Andrew, Zeno and I would be administrators for our eDuties Account.

Please also note that there is a limitation of users under one organization account, totally less than 7. In case someone else needs to use the platform, you may be notified by one of the administrators to inactive your account in order to let another colleague access the platform. The status of "active" and "inactive" can be switched by the administrators to meet the number limit. Please advise your needs and our firm will try best to accommodate your needs.

Fei Wang

26 Feb 2020