DAS Law – Online Business & Legal Advice

November 1, 2026

What a Statutory Demand Is and How a Company Should Respond

A statutory demand is one of the most serious letters a company can receive. It is not an ordinary request for payment. It starts a short legal clock, and ignoring it can lead to the company being wound up. Every director should know what one looks like.

Statutory demands are made under the Corporations Act. The Federal Court of Australia describes one as a formal, written request requiring a company to pay a debt. This article covers demands served on companies. It explains the timing, the minimum amount and the options for responding.

September 14, 2026

Directors’ Duties for Small Company Owners in Australia

Plenty of small business owners run their business through a company. Setting one up can feel like paperwork and little else. Once you are a director, though, the law expects certain things of you. Those duties apply whether the company has one employee or fifty.

The duties sit mainly in the Corporations Act, and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) enforces them. Some are general duties that apply every day. Others become pressing when money gets tight. This article covers both in plain terms.

August 20, 2023

7 Drug Rehabilitation Options That May Help Avoid Conviction And Prison Time

You may not be aware that when someone enters into a drug rehab program, the reason they are there may be about more than just their need or desire to end their drug addiction. It may also be true that they have entered drug rehab to avoid being convicted of a drug offence and subsequently having a criminal record that inevitably follows against their name.

A criminal record is more than just some information about what crime someone has been convicted of. It can also act as a dark cloud hanging over several aspects of one’s life and can thus hinder employment opportunities or even the ability to obtain a bank account. Many people in Court are also keen to avoid the social stigma of being classified as someone with a drug-related criminal conviction.

It is little wonder that many people will choose drug rehab as an alternative to a conviction if the Court gives them this option as for the type of drug rehab program that is either deemed necessary or offered as an option, here are seven of the main possibilities.

September 8, 2021

Why Being In Financial Difficulty Is Not Enough Reason For You To Be Entitled To Divorce Hearing Costs

If your relationship with your partner or spouse should, unfortunately, come to an end, one of the experts you will want to seek out for help and advice is a family lawyer. Their expertise will be vital in helping to ensure that any divorce agreement is fair for you and your children if you have any, and also that the property settlement is fair and equitable with respect to your future finances.

It may seem that this is the only aspect of your finances that your financial lawyer can help you with and that all other matters such as your taxes and investments are what you would need to speak to your tax advisor, investment broker and accountant about. However, there is another financial element of your divorce where your family lawyer can be of huge assistance to you, and this is in asking the court to award you costs.

These costs would relate to the fees relating to any court hearing or rulings concerning your divorce, and also the costs that you incur due to the work that your family lawyers and their office have done for you. This would include meetings, drawing up legal documents, research and time spent appearing in court on your behalf. As you can imagine this can add up to a sizeable amount and one which can place a huge burden on you financially.

July 6, 2021

3 Questions Which Tell You If You Should Permanently Close Your Business Or Not

There can come a time in every business owner’s journey, where they are unsure whether they wish to carry on with the business and they start to contemplate closing it down. If they decide to close, then obviously they need to consult with their commercial lawyers to ensure that all the legalities of closing the business are met.

However, to actually get to this point a decision has to be made, and what we are going to examine here, is a process with which a business owner is, with as much certainty as possible, determine that they have made the correct choice.

When we say process, we may unintentionally have you imagining a huge flowchart or mind map with dozens of ‘Yes/No’ intersections which take a business owner one step closer or one step further away from closing their business. In fact, we do not use dozens of questions, in fact, we do not even get into double figures. Instead, we use only three.

Before we go any further, we also assume that even having answered these three questions, business owners would also confer with their family, business associates, and their commercial lawyers before making the final decision.

June 16, 2021

Personal Guarantees And Why They Can Be A Legal Minefield

If you are a business owner or major shareholder of a business, before you agree to and sign a personal guarantee relating to that business, you should seek the advice of a lawyer from www.lawyerslist.com.au, specifically, a commercial lawyer.

At its core, a personal guarantee is basically you agreeing as an individual to pay the debts of another party, namely a business. Ultimately if that business were to fail, owing monies to other businesses, or lenders, if you had signed a written guarantee for any of them, you would be liable for those individual amounts.

At first, it might seem that there is little incentive to sign a personal guarantee, however, it is often the only way in which some businesses are able to raise the finance necessary for them to get started. The choice for a new business owner is often play safe, not have the finance, and not getting the business started, or taking a risk, agreeing to a personal guarantee, and having the money they need to start the business properly.

Ignorance Is Not Always Bliss

It is important that for a business which you own, or for which you are director, that all written contracts are thoroughly checked, not only by yourself, but by your commercial lawyer, if possible. There have been numerous examples of commercial contracts including clauses which meant, when the director signed them, they were in fact signing a personal guarantee.

May 24, 2021

3 Common Mistakes To Avoid Making In Family Court

Unless you are a studier of the law, or for some reason find yourself in courts on a regular basis, the idea of attending the Family Court can be a daunting one. Even your family lawyer, for whom the Family Court is very familiar surroundings will admit to getting a little nervous each time they are in court, given that the outcome can have a profound impact on families and especially their children.

Regardless of whether it is your first time in the Family Court or the umpteenth time, you should be aware that there are certain rules, standards, and modes of behaviour that must be followed and adhered to at all times. Whilst it mainly deals with matters relating to family law, doing something within the family court, which is considered illegal, can soon find you facing a criminal court instead.

What we are about to outline 3 of the main mistakes that people make when they appear in the family court. These will most certainly do damage to your case, or at best delay it further, and in some cases almost certainly see you being considered as having committing an offense and facing the appropriate consequences of doing so.

February 9, 2021

What Family Law Says About A Divorced Parent Travelling Abroad With Their Children

When couples with children divorce, normally most matters are settled amicably, and usually with the help of each parent’s family lawyer. However, a situation can arise which, to most people, would not normally seem like a problem, but for divorced parents with children, it can prove to be an issue.

Family lawyers advise that one such scenario is when one of the parents wishes to take their children overseas. Obviously, to do so, any child travelling to another country will need a passport, and this can often be the first hurdle if the other parent refuses to sanction the child being issued a passport.

This is a result of joint parental responsibility, which is the usual default position following a divorce where the couple has any children. This means that each parent has the right to be informed of and must agree to a passport being issued. Even if they already have a passport, taking children out of the country is another situation where joint parental responsibility applies.

Now there can be many reasons a parent would refuse permission, with some of them legitimate and some not so much. With the latter, it could be that the absent parent simply wants to make things difficult and refuses permission out of spite.

In this scenario, the other parent could apply to the court to have joint parental responsibility order amended so that matters like passports and overseas travel were excluded. They would certainly have a strong case as the Family Court does not look favourably upon parents with joint parental responsibility being belligerent, especially if their actions are not in the best interests of their children.

September 17, 2020

Pleading Mental Illness As A Defence Against Committing A Crime

In the current caseload of any criminal lawyer there will undoubtedly be those cases where the person accused of the crime was suffering from some form of mental illness.

The degree of that mental illness will obviously vary from client to client, but in some of the extreme cases there is the possibility that the defendant might wish to enter a plea of ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’.

If this is the case, and it can be shown that the person’s mental state is so bad, then consideration might even be given by the court that they are not even fit to stand trial.

To arrive at this conclusion a court will have ordered detailed reports from psychologists and/or psychiatrists who will complete that report with regards to the person’s mental condition.

If it were the case that the person was deemed not fit to stand trial, it would be done so on the basis that it was thought the defendant would not be able to

1) Understand the consequences of actions they had done

2) Understand the nature of any punishment if found guilty

3) Understand the aim of any punishment

Accordingly, they would be deemed in no fit mental condition to follow the proceedings within which they were going to be tried, and thus the trial would be called off.

July 10, 2020

Four Things You Need to Know About Spousal Maintenance

In Australia, both partners are very well protected by law in the event of a separation or divorce. If one partner doesn’t or is unable to work or has a significantly lower income, the court may rule that the other partner is responsible for paying spousal maintenance.

In general, this is designed to provide support for the person with the lower income. Spousal maintenance may be paid in a lump sum or at regular, pre-defined intervals, as required by the courts.

However, as family lawyers will tell you, spousal maintenance can be something that’s a little complicated and hard to understand. Because of this, we’ve put together the following list of the five most important things you have to know about spousal maintenance.

The Court Will Consider Numerous Things

When making spousal maintenance adjudications, the courts will take a range of things into account. Most importantly is the income of the two people in question, along with their qualifications and ability to work. Other considerations include:

Children and whether either party is responsible for any dependents.
Any savings, superannuation or other assets either party has.
The health and age of both parties.
Child support and child support payments.

In addition, anything else considered relevant may be used by the courts when they make their decision.