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Leases – Demolition and relocation clause – Commercial lease

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A new demolition and relocation clause for use in commercial leases has been added to the Library of clauses in all By Lawyers Leases publications. This clause was added as a result of a request from a By Lawyers user.

The new clause provides for termination by either the lessor or lessee in the event that the lessor proposes to demolish the building or a substantial portion of the building of which the premises form part, on the lessor providing 90 days written notice to the lessee. This clause also addresses the costs of relocation of the lessee’s business and requires the proposal for demolition to be genuine.

Please email us at askus@bylawyers.com.au or call 02 4858 0619 with any feedback or suggestions. We would love to hear from you!

Amendment to wills creating discretionary trust

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Amendments have been made to the following By Lawyers precedent wills creating discretionary trusts:

  1. Individual will creating testamentary discretionary trust;
  2. Client 1 will creating testamentary discretionary trust with client 2 as executor; and
  3. Client 2 will creating testamentary discretionary trust with client 1 as executor.

The precedents have been amended as follows:

Clause 7 has been amended to improve readability. The amendments do not change the effect of the wills.

Clause 9 has been enhanced to better protect the testator’s spouse. The amendments delete sub-clauses (b) and (c). These clauses gifted the residue of the estate to the spouse and provided for gifts to particular beneficiaries, respectively.

Clause (b) has not been replaced, as the spouse has been included as a beneficiary of the trust in clause (g). Previously the trust would only be established if the spouse did not survive the testator. Now the residue will always be gifted to a trust, within which the spouse is a beneficiary.

Clause (c) has been replaced with new clauses (b), (c) and (d) which provide for specific gifts to beneficiaries.

The wills can be found in the By Lawyers Wills publications.

Standardised bail conditions – Criminal QLD

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The Queensland Supreme Court has developed and made available standardised bail conditions, through its Streamlining Criminal Justice Committee and Rules Committee.

The document is not a practice direction or court form and has no formal application; it is simply an attempt by the court to provide examples of clearer proposed bail conditions so that clients granted bail can better understand their obligations. The document is a useful aid in the drafting of proposed orders when bail is sought and might assist practitioners and their clients in seeking and obtaining bail before the Magistrates Court.

See the By Lawyers Criminal Magistrates Court matter plan for a copy of the Standardised Bail Conditions – and helpful commentary on bail applications generally.

Matter type changes

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There has been a technical change to the structure of our Defamation & Protecting Reputation and Neighbourhood Disputes publications. They have been changed from federal matter types to state-based matter types.

Subscribers may notice that the title of the Defamation publication now includes a state name. This is nominative only. The content of the Defamation publication is unchanged and remains the same across all states.

For state-based guides and precedents to be visible from existing matters, LEAP Desktop users will need to change their matter type from Other areas of law > Miscellaneous > Disputes to Other areas of law > Disputes.

Keeping up to date – Podcast

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The law never stands still! Keeping up to date with changes in the law and practice is an ever present challenge faced by law firms.

Legislation and regulations change all the time, new cases are decided which impact the law, new practice directions are released by courts and changes in document lodgement processes are made by various authorities. All these and more need to be continually noted and understood, as they can affect the way a law firm conducts client matters and does business.

Just keeping the firm’s precedents current with changes in the law is a major task – which is not billable! Using precedents which are out of date exposes the firm to risk.

Using By Lawyers commentaries and precedents eases the burden upon firms and reduces their risk.

By Lawyers have a team dedicated to tracking changes in the law in each Australian jurisdiction and ensuring that all of our content is updated as those changes happen. Firms using the By Lawyers guides can be confident that they are using commentaries and precedents which are up to date with current legislation.

In our latest podcast our Managing Director Brad Watts and LEAP’s National Marketing Manager Claire James discuss the issues around keeping up to date with the law and how By Lawyers can help firms to stay on top of changes.

 

Electronic filing in the Magistrates Court – QLD

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The By Lawyers Magistrates Court QLD commentaries have been updated to reflect the recent changes which introduce electronic filing in the Magistrates Court, as a result of amendments to the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 by the Uniform Civil Procedure and Other Legislation Amendment and Repeal Regulation (No. 1) 2018 and the subsequent repeal of 49 Practice Directions by Practice Direction No. 4 of 2018.

New Division 4, Part 1, Chapter 22 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 now sets out the rules for electronic filing. For court users to access eLodgement, it is necessary to contact CITEC Confirm to obtain a login.

The following documents are approved by the Principal Register for electronic filing in the Magistrates Court where the proceedings were commenced by a claim that was electronically filed:

  • Claim (Form 2)
  • Application (Form 9)
  • Statement of Claim (Form 16)
  • Request for default judgement (Form 25)
  • Default judgement (Form 26)
  • Affidavit (Form 46)
  • Enforcement Hearing Summons (Form 70)

By Lawyers Guides provide practitioners and support staff with up to date information to help make the practice of law easier.

By Lawyers is going global!

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BY LAWYERS IS GOING GLOBAL

By Lawyers is excited to announce that in February 2019 we will be launching our online guides and precedents in the United Kingdom. Our UK team is already on the ground working on content with our UK authors – practising lawyers in the various UK jurisdictions.

In the UK, we will duplicate the successful Australian By Lawyers system to give UK lawyers the same real time access to law, matter plans and precedents that are an integral part of practice for their Australian colleagues.

We also wish to assure our Australian clients that it will be very much business as usual at home for our Australian editorial and publishing teams. We have appointed a new management team for By Lawyers Australia to ensure that our Australian publications continue to expand and improve – and remain always up to date, of course.

We have pleasure introducing Brad Watts as the new Managing Director of By Lawyers Australia.

Many of you know Brad already a contributing author and more recently our senior consultant. Brad will take the reigns of By Lawyers Australia from today, reporting to our Chief Executive Officer, Bobbi Young, Chief Operating Officer Danni Larney and the Global Editor in Chief Guy Dawson. Brad will be ably assisted by our new General Manager Paul Maher, previously Legal Editor, and the rest of our wonderful in-house team – plus the 45 practising lawyers across Australia who are our external authors and who help us keep our content relevant, practical and up to date.

We sincerely thank our Australian subscribers for their support over the last decade and we look forward to continuing to assist them to enjoy practice more.

By Lawyers is very proud to be taking our great Australian product to the world.

Combustible cladding – Conveyancing – QLD

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New regulations for combustible cladding

From 1 October 2018, amendments by the Building and Other Legislation (Cladding) Amendment Regulation 2018 (QLD) (the Regulation) to the Building Regulation 2006 (QLD) require owners of private buildings to undertake a three-stage process, managed through an online system, to identify whether a building is affected by combustible cladding.

Buildings covered by the Regulation are class 2-9 buildings of Type A or Type B construction for which building approval was given after 1 January 1994 and before 1 October 2018.

The Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC) is the regulator responsible for the online checklist and register.

For further information on the three-stage rollout, see the QBCC website.

Duties of an owner on sale of affected property

A change of building ownership attracts statutory duties for building owners. If one or more of the relevant stages has been completed, an owner must give the new owner:

  • notice, in the approved form, about the extent to which the original owner has complied with Part 4A; and
  • copies of each document given by the original owner to the QBCC under Part 4A.

They must also give the QBCC a copy of the notice given to the new owner. Failure to do so may attract a maximum penalty of up to 20 penalty units.

The By Lawyers Conveyancing (QLD) publication has been updated accordingly.

Supervised legal practice – A new podcast from By Lawyers and LEAP

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Many small firms have lawyers on the team who are still in their first two years of practice and therefore subject to a condition on their practising certificate that they may only engage in supervised legal practice.

Join our Senior Consultant and Editor Brad Watts and LEAP National Marketing Manager Claire James for a discussion on the ways in which proper supervision is important for both the firm and for junior lawyers and how it can be an essential element of running a successful small law firm, as a means to ensure delivery of high quality client outcomes and a vital risk management tool.

The President of the NSW Law Society recently highlighted the importance of senior practitioners meeting their supervisory obligations to junior practitioners who are subject to the restriction of supervised legal practice in their first 2 years. This podcast discusses the factors which impact – and sometimes impede – proper supervision in small legal practices and how the By Lawyers guides and precedents can help firms comply with their supervision requirements.

The podcast covers the general supervision requirements and also looks at some specific By Lawyers precedents which can assist firms with their supervision obligations, such as Retainer Instructions and To Do lists.

Oh, and with some help from John Grisham, we also learn why Australian lawyers are better than American lawyers!

 

QLD – QCAT – Online forms

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Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal will be progressively introducing an online forms facility, whereby parties are able to complete forms and documents online and submit them to the registry electronically. Available online forms can be accessed on the QCAT website.

The submitting party will receive an electronic sealed copy of the document filed and a confirmation letter with the filing date and application number to their nominated email address. Service copies can be printed from this electronic copy.

Parties must have the original of any documents filed electronically with them at any Tribunal proceeding.

See QCAT Practice Direction No 1 of 2016 for further information on the procedures for the completion and submission of forms online. Schedule A to this Practice Direction lists the applications, referrals or documents that may be filed electronically.

The By Lawyers QCAT Commentary has been updated to reflect this procedural change. As a reminder, the QCAT Guide is located within the Magistrates Court Publication.

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