I left my husband in January and took our 2 sons (2 & 10) interstate from Victoria to South Australia without his permission. He told me that I was not allowed to do it, but I was given legal advice telling me that I could. I did not leave because of any reason except that I feel I am changing & I wanted to be closer to my family who live in South Australia.
2 weeks ago I moved into a rental property & signed a six month lease.
Two days after I moved into the property the Australian Federal Police arrived at my new address, serving me with a 'Recovery Order, and took the boys to hand them over to my husband. I believe they obtained my address from Centrelink through a 'Location Order' recieved from the Court.
I had to appear at the Federal Magistrates Court in Melbourne yesterday & the judge ordered that I have to move back to Victoria within 14 days or my husband will be given custody.
If I do that then I will be breaking the lease. What will happen if I do that?
I dont want to move back to Victoria, but I do not want to lose custody of the children either.Contact the real estate agent and explain the situation you are in.
Not sure what the go is in SA but you could be hit with lost rent, advertising costs and the lease re-letting fee
Would that come out of the Bond? There is no way that I could afford to rent another place in Victoria as well as pay rent in South Australia as well as the other fees that you mention.
You will be up for the rent on the place that you are currently leasing up until the expiry or someone else takes it over. On top of that you pay the letting fee, lease preparation and advertising costs.
You need really good legal advice immediatley, you may be right but have gone about it the wrong way, seek out some good advice ASAP.
How long ahve you lived in the rented house? You will be up for a portion of the advertising, leasing costs, and rent until a new tenant is found. And it would usually come out of the bond, assuming the bond covers it.
I only moved into the property just under 2 weeks ago.
You could apply to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal to have the tenancy terminated on hardship grounds. I imagine that if you told the Tribunal that you received legal advice to the effect that you could move interstate, the Tribunal would look on that sympathetically.
Having said that, what kind of legal advice did you get? Did you retain a lawyer and pay them for their advice, or did you just speak to a lawyer at a party one night? I would think that the Tribunal would look on your situation far more favourably if you paid for legal advice and got the wrong advice than if you just spoke to a friend of a friend of a friend who knows a lawyer.
Good luck
K
It sounds like you didn't bother checking out your legal obligations very well, I can't see a lawyer saying it's okay to take a fathers kids interstate and he has no rights to stop you. I think you would have a good case for hardship before a tribunal regarding breaking your lease. The cost for this minimal ie about $50.
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