I am helping a client who paid most of the cost of the construction of a granny flat at his daughter and son-in-law’s house, using his $50k life’s savings. He also did a lot of the cooking, cleaning, washing, folding, ironing, lawn-mowing and taxiing of children. On sale, the plan was to buy 2 unit, […]
Granny Flat Dispute Read More »
I’ve been recovering from the stress of a 3 day trial , where I was the barrister. The Magistrate reserved her decision. The outcome is line-ball and could go either way. My clients are broke and this was a pro bono matter, so I do not get paid for all the work we did unless
We recently had a query about a mother who wishes to transfer a farm to her daughter. There are transfer duty exemptions for transfers of farming property to relations, including trusts of which relations are beneficiaries, as long as no one other than family members are the beneficiaries. The exemption is not available if the
Transferring a Farm Read More »
I was in court a few weeks ago expecting to argue why a particular lease was a “retail shop lease”, as defined in the Commercial Tenancy (Retail Shops) Agreements Act, but the Magistrate said it was too complicated for a 3 hour appointment and set it down for another mediation , and a 3 day
Commercial Lease Dispute Read More »
We were seeking an adjournment of a hearing which was set for last Friday, due to one of our clients having had a recent double mastectomy and being told not to do anything too stressful. The Claimant would not agree to an adjournment, because her husband is dying and she wanted it out of the
Stressful Court Case Read More »
We sent a demand letter naming all of the following as proposed defendants to a court action: The sales rep for a house and land package for misleading and deceptive conduct; Her employer, the builder, and its sole director for putting her up to it; A company which purported to sell our client a block
Fast Resolution of a Dispute Read More »
I received a call from a builder regarding his trailer, tools and his stand up paddle board, which he needed to head north on the weekend with his tools. The problem was this: The chap had been keeping the trailer, etc in his girlfriend’s garage, because it was safer than his carport; He broke up
A Demanding Break-Up Read More »
It has been a busy week compiling affidavits for a couple of court cases we are dealing with. One I was working on the other day for a Magistrates Court matter included a 69 page spreadsheet! This was to help us prove that a leased business premise was predominantly used for the sale of goods
Paper Heavy Litigation Read More »
We had an enquiry from a new client who was working as a subcontractor for a former head contractor. The arrangement was that the head contractor would get 10% of the labour component for any work he referred to our client. The two fell out and the head contractor claimed: (a) workmanship issues; (b) ownership
Contractor Disputes Read More »
I was up rather late recently correcting errors in a spreadsheet that my client had sent me after 6.30pm and which I had not seen until 10.00pm. One of my associates was off to the Magistrates Court the following morning to try to settle the matter, so it was rather urgent. It was over 2,000
Dispute Settlement Read More »