New Home Grant Scheme & Replacement of the First Home Owner Grant Scheme
Michael McGrath is an Associate Director at Mullane & Lindsay in Newcastle and specialises in Commercial & Property Law.
The NSW Government announced in its budget on 12 June 2012 introduction of the New Home Grant Scheme which applies to all buyers of new homes in NSW and also of important changes to the current First Home Owner Grant scheme.
From 1 July 2012, a new grant of $5,000.00 will be provided to buyers of new homes, whether off the plan of newly built, with a value up to $650,000.00 and to buyers of vacant land that is intended to be the site of a new home valued up to $450,000.00. The grant is available to all non-first home buyers and is available to investors as well as owner occupiers. Read the rest of this entry »
Paid Parental Leave scheme for working parents and it’s proposed extension for fathers and other partners Part 2
Ashley Stevens is a Solicitor at Mullane & Lindsay in Newcastle and specialises in Family, Relationship and Matrimonial Law
Once you have successfully made a claim for Parental Leave Pay, you are able to nominate the date you start receiving the payments. You can start receiving payments from the birth date or adoption date, or at some later date, however the 18 weeks of payments must all be paid within 52 weeks of the birth or adoption. Read the rest of this entry »
Paid Parental Leave scheme for working parents and it’s proposed extension for fathers and other partners Part 1
Ashley Stevens is a Solicitor at Mullane & Lindsay in Newcastle and specialises in Family, Relationship and Matrimonial Law
The Paid Parental Leave scheme entitles working parents of children born or adopted from 1 January 2011 to receive Parental Leave Pay which is funded by the government.
In order to receive Parental Leave Pay, certain eligibility criteria must be met. If eligible, working parents can receive Parental Leave Pay at the rate of the National Minimum Wage (currently $589.40 a week) for up to 18 weeks. Tax is payable on this pay. Read the rest of this entry »
Making a passport application for a child requires the consent of all people with parental responsibility for that child.
Ashley Stevens is a Solicitor at Mullane & Lindsay in Newcastle and specialises in Family, Relationship and Matrimonial Law
The law provides that every person with parental responsibility for a child must consent before a passport will be issued to a child. This is aimed at protecting children from abduction, and providing safeguards to all people with parental responsibility for a child. Read the rest of this entry »
The Hague Convention & International Child Abduction
David Gawthorne is a Senior Solicitor at Mullane & Lindsay in Newcastle and an Accredited Specialist in Family, Relationship and Matrimonial Law
The obligation of the Family Court of Australia to return children to foreign countries when they have been removed or retained by one parent has recently been placed under the media spotlight. The Court sitting in Brisbane ordered that four children, aged 9 to 14, were to be returned to their father in Italy. The mother then took the children into hiding, aided by the children’s maternal great-grandmother. Some sympathy was generated for the plight of the mother and the children by reports that the hearing received by the mother in an attempt to retain the children in Australia explored only a very narrow range of issues, rather than the wide-ranging inquiry usually conducted into parenting arrangements proposed by disputing parents inAustralia. Read the rest of this entry »