You generally won’t get free legal advice for commercial matters.

VCAT is a tribunal, not a court, so less intimidating. You could probably do it all yourself, but if the other party has a lawyer they may trip you up.
costs would be limited. i.e. if you employed a lawyer and won, you would possibly get the maximum allowable in costs award to you, but your legal fees may be higher.
they may be able to take things to a higher court
keep in mind if it goes to the tribubnal, if it gets that far, the other party is expecting to win too.
Yes the tradesman could simply ignore any judgment against them. You would need to them enforce the judgment by making further applications to take property, put them into bankruptcy etc.

Perhaps ring the Dept of Fair Trading as they may have jurisdiction over this sort of thing.

Sorry, this is not an area that I advise on.

Personal money. I have lent money out about 5 times and have had 5 lots of problems. People just think they don’t have to pay it back.

RussianAussie (QLD) wrote:

Realestate says that units in Cairns have 10+% rental yield.
http://www.realestate.com.au/invest/1-bed-unit-in-cairns+city,+qld+4870?shd=rental_yield&zoom=12
How is that possible???It’s too good to be true :)

On that link you provided the capital growth was listed as negative 8%.

fredstralia wrote:

I’m not expecting any significant capital growth in a long time.

If this is the case what is the point in investing in this property? What will you get in your pocket? each year. How much after 5 years?

Where is the $25k deposit and costs coming from? Have you factored in the interest on this? Even if cash it would mean an opportunity cost.

If you had all of your loan contracts properly signed and returned before the bank’s cut off dates then it may be their fault and they may pay. If not it doesn’t appear their fault, but they may still pay – all or part.

You should see a lawyer for advice before starting as there are strategies to save stamp duty and potentially CGT.

contract date for the land generally.

Apply to the supreme court to appoint a trustee and have the trustee force a sale of the property. This is needed because both parties are needed to sell. The other owner could also be dead. If that is the case their executor needs to be tracked down, or someone has to apply for probate or administration. Their estate can be sued for their share of the fees and land tax too.

This may be a mixture of tax advice and general property advice (no licence needed for this). There are some financial planner type companies that supposedly specialise in property related advice, but the fees for a ‘plan’ can be $3000 upwards.

Why not just put some details on the forum for general suggestions?