If you have not been provided with a costs agreement that complies with the legal profession act you should investigate further.

If we charged by the hour and everything was done by a soli it would often top that. We charge fixed and in some cases though at under a third of that.

We do a bit of conveyancing on NRAS properties

It is interesting that the purchase price often has to be negotiated down after a valuation doesn't stack up.  Some are great from the word go, others seem to inflate the NRAS benefit.

Agree.  Expensive to try and change.  IT is possible but are you sure it is worth it when you could just use different materials

Hi Richard

I was coming from the perspective that there are more often than not ways that you can do things, in this case you could probably find a way to do it if you took a somewhat liberal approach to the truth.  Would I help them find it no.

D

Hi Kara

This is very Council specific.  Can you tell us the Council

Anthony

Where did I say lawyers were gods. Heaps of lawyers are absolutely hopeless.  

I discussed the legal side of it. There are numerous cases that outline what accountants can not do.

The reason I talk about insurance is because half of my practice revolves around whether someone has insurance cover for their actions or not.  If they have insurance cover, it doesn't matter what entity they operate through, what their assets are etc, Insurance companies have cheque books.  The biggest judgement in the world is pointless if there is no money/assets to pay it.  

Paper certificates on the office walls are not a substitute for advice based on well researched current material applied to an individuals personal situation.

True, but if you don't have the paper certificate relating to law and the right to be an Australian Legal Practitioner it is illegal to do it.  Someone could have been researching it forever, be all over it better than a professor of law who has devoted his life to that one issue, a 20 odd year old kid with the right papers is allowed to do it, the knowledgeable guy is not.  Whether it is fair, you like it or not,or whatever else, that is the way it works.

I am not sure on the financing aspect but from a legal perspective separate your professional services and project managent from the ownership. On a development I do One entity owns property Another project manages development Project management entity contracts others to do development Builder Architect Town planning It just happens that I control one of those entities or maybe only beneficiary etc 

This structuring stuff is one of my passions.  <edit>

Sunshine Coast is the worst performer of my newer planning practices so far.
D

Good at Marketing