News and resources

A case heard in NSW involved a dispute over whether a man had made adequate provision for his stepdaughter in his will.

The man died in November 2017.

The gross value of his estate at the date of his death was about $205,000.

He and his first wife had two children together, who resided in the United Kingdom.

The man met his second wife in Australia in 1984, and they married in 1986.

They had no children together. However, the man’s second wife had one child, who became his stepdaughter.

The second wife died in 2015, leaving her entire estate to her husband, save for a silver belt which she left to her daughter.

In 2012, the man had made a will in which his stepdaughter was named as a substitute beneficiary in the event of her mother dying before him.

However, in 2016 he made a new will, in which he left nothing to his stepdaughter. Instead he left the whole of his estate to his biological children and grandchildren.

After payment of debts and funeral and testamentary expenses, each of his children was to receive 40 per cent of his estate, his granddaughter ten per cent, and his grandsons who were living at the date of his death the remaining ten per cent divided between them.

Directors are often unaware that a winding up order does not need to be the end of the road for their company. We recently acted successfully for a director seeking that the winding up of his company be terminated under section 482 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), returning control of the company to the director and allowing the company’s business to […]

Recovering business debt by chasing unpaid invoices is possibly the greatest curse of doing business. No matter how many reminders you send, your bills are ignored. It goes down the line – they say they can’t pay you as they are owed money, or they dispute the work done, and you can’t pay your own […]

A dispute heard in NSW was between the buyer of a property and its vendors, who wanted to rescind the contract of sale after the sunset date had passed.

The parties entered into a conveyancing transaction for off-the-plan (unregistered) residential land in Picton, NSW.

The vendors were husband and wife. The wife signed the contract of sale on behalf of her husband. The purchaser signed the counterpart contract and the contracts were exchanged on 2 July 2015.

The contract contained several special conditions, one of which was that the plan of subdivision had to be registered within six months of the date of the contract (commonly referred to as a “sunset date”).

If the vendor did everything reasonably necessary to register the plan of subdivision but failed to do so within this time, it would enable either party to rescind – that is, terminate the contract.

We’ve got a spare bedroom in our home and are considering renting it out to a single person like a nurse, teacher or uni student who is looking for a place to live. But what does the law say on boarding or lodging in a family home? Renting out spare bedroom a legal grey area […]

The Commonwealth Privacy Act has been amended to create a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy (a tort is a non-criminal act of wrongdoing). The amendment postdated the 2024 Victorian County Court case of Waller v Barrett. It remains to be seen how higher courts will treat the case precedent, and more generally what […]

More and more people have digital assets such as cryptocurrency that can be worth a fortune. However, it isn’t mentioned in the Family Law Act and its division is increasingly a battleground in property settlements in a divorce. Cryptocurrency considered “property” in a divorce Even though Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets are not specifically […]

For what is believed to be the first time, a trans athlete has won a protracted court battle to enable an Apprehended Personal Violence Order (APVO) to be used to combat cyberbullying, as well as physical violence and abuse. Trans athlete targeted in cyberbullying campaign Sadly, cyberbullying is happening more and more, despite laws aimed […]

A recent landmark judgment by the Dust Diseases Tribunal has awarded a Sydney tunnel worker $2.4 million compensation after he contracted silicosis and fibrosis from damaging airborne hazards. Silicosis diagnosis after 27 years of working in tunnels The award is the highest ever received in Australia for a dust-related injury – $860,000 in general damages, […]

The NSW government has declared its battle to tighten access to workers compensation is over, after a core element of its workers comp bill was defeated in parliament. Workers comp bill raised bar for psychological injury eligibility Workers compensation is currently available to people suffering from psychological injury, such as PTSD, anxiety and depression, provided […]

A Queensland police officer developed PTSD after attending a motor vehicle accident in 2013, involving a car driver who was speeding and intoxicated with amphetamines and cannabis at the time of the collision.

The policeman attended the scene and tried to keep the driver alive with first aid and encouragement. He was the first officer on the scene, having arrived earlier than the ambulance paramedics and the fire brigade.

The police officer had to deal with the arrival of the driver’s parents at the scene of the accident and had to indicate to them that their son would not survive. The driver’s parents had to say goodbye to him at the accident scene.

The fact of having to deal with the driver’s parents added an extra level of trauma for the policeman, over and above the trauma of dealing with the driver’s injuries, which proved to be fatal.

Maurie Stack, 1948-2025 Maurie Stack OAM, hailed as a giant of the law in NSW, has died aged 77. With his brothers, Ray and Tim, he built Stacks Law Firm from its base in Taree to include 15 offices across the east coast including Sydney, employing more than 180 lawyers and support staff. The firm […]

Tough new regulations on administering cosmetic injections, such as Botox, have come into force following several women being hospitalised with life-threatening conditions after receiving botched treatments. Black market for Botox and cosmetic treatments In March 2025, a Sydney non-registered practitioner who had administered fake Botox injections to the hospitalised women was banned from performing cosmetic […]

The New South Wales legal profession is mourning the loss of Maurie Stack OAM, a former President of the Law Society of NSW and the driving force behind the expansion of Stacks Law Firm, who passed away overnight. Current Law Society President Jennifer Ball announced the news today, paying tribute to Stack as a “true […]

A law firm negotiated with a landlord for the lease of office premises in the inner Brisbane suburb of Bowen Hills, in Queensland. In November 2010, the parties agreed a deal and the terms were recorded in two documents:

• A standard form lease for a term of seven years, with three options to renew. Rent was to be paid monthly and a signage fee was to be paid annually; and
• An incentive deed, by which the landlord offered several incentives to the law firm to secure the deal, including a contribution to the fitout of the offices and a three-year reduction in the rent and signage fees payable under the lease.

A married couple bought a rural property on the northwest peri-urban fringe of Sydney in 1969. Both held high-profile jobs in fields unrelated to agriculture, so for the whole of the time between the purchase and the death in 2016 of the wife, who outlived her husband, the property had to be run by a manager on a share farming basis.

The claimant was the son of the man who had managed the property until 1974, after which the claimant, then 22, took over, and remained as the manager until the death of the wife.

Under the will of the wife – the sole owner of the property after her husband’s death – the property was left to one of her two daughters; and there was a gift of a little over $200,000 to the claimant.

Falling from a height is the leading cause of traumatic injuries and fatalities in the NSW construction industry, closely followed by construction site accidents involving electricity. Alarming rate of construction site accidents Safe Work Australia statistics are disturbing: in the year 2022-23 there were 36 fatalities in the construction industry. Construction accidents led to 16,647 […]

A couple had a child in 2008 and separated in 2010. The parents had distinctly different world views, with the mother being deeply religious, while the father was not religious at all. After the separation, the couple managed to negotiate arrangements for sharing the care of the child.

In November 2012 the father took legal action against the mother, seeking interim orders binding the parties in relation to the school that their daughter would attend.