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Welcome to The OMB Law Board, the podcast where legal insights meet practical advice. Hosted by Simon Bennett, Managing Partner at OMB Solicitors, this show delves into what you can expect when engaging with OMB Solicitors. Specialising in property law and commercial law, OMB also boasts dedicated teams for estate planning, contested estates, body corporate matters, litigation, and family law.
Each episode features in-depth discussions led by experienced team leaders, some with over 20 years of expertise. You'll gain valuable knowledge on initial consultations, cost assessments, timelines, and the importance of clear communication and confidentiality in legal matters.
Join us to break down barriers and navigate your legal journey with confidence. Tune in for expert advice, client stories, and tips on how to prepare for your legal needs. The OMB Law Board is your trusted source for all things legal.
(upbeat music) Hi there, and welcome back to the OMB Law Board. I'm Simon Bennett from OMB Solicitors, and today I've got Juliette Nairn, partner at OMB Solicitors. Good morning, Juliette. Good morning, Simon. So Juliette, we go way back. We met originally at Bonn University in Law School. A long time. And became friends, and after that, you went off on your own journey and travelled to Sydney and became an expert in all things body corporate. Yes, that's right. So I did, we both actually started on the Gold Coast together, which was great.
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And from there, my journey went up to Brisbane, as you know. And it was in Brisbane when I first came across and I actually, well, really accidentally fell into Strata Law at a property law firm that decided to specialize in body corporate and Strata Law. So from there I went to Sydney and I was actually part of the first Strata Tata Law Firm that we had in really Australia at the time. And so that was 10 years in Sydney, which was excellent experience, of course, in Sydney. And then I was meant to have a break.
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Ah yes, the break. (Laughing)
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Which never eventuated because the moment I arrived back on the Gold Coast time and convinced me to start just one day a week. Just one day, that was it. I said, I'm not gonna be a partner again, I'm not gonna do this. But we sucked you in and we're glad we did because you've been a fantastic addition to OMB and particularly the body corporate team. But today I wanted to talk to you and let our audience know a little bit about one of our key principles and purposes here at OMB, which is to make people's lives better and that's kind of why we have OMB, right? That's exactly right. One of the things that we wanted to focus on to make OMB
distinguishing from other law firms is we wanted people to understand that coming to see a lawyer should not be a stressful event in their life. Even though often it comes from a stressful event, we want people to understand to come and see us early when an event or something happens in their life. Whether it's buying a home or needing a will or even a small body corporate dispute, those sorts of aspects. Yeah, and sometimes life just gets difficult and unpleasant. You could be going through a family breakdown. That's exactly right. It's unpleasant, how can we help? So in terms of that, when an event happens or something changes in your life, whether it's getting divorced or getting married or someone might become unwell, there are certain circumstances where life just changes. One of the really important areas is using our state's team in having a will. A lot of individuals think it only affects them when they don't have a will. What it actually majorly affects is the people they leave behind. So we get lots of circumstances in when we're trying to deal with very emotional, difficult, stressful situations when people unfortunately have died without a will or a will that's very out of date. So there's a certain peace of mind that people can have when they come to OMB that in these trying and testing times and also in successful times that we can make your life better? That's exactly right. In successful and talking about those aspects and a lot of our staff members because we do have quite a young team in terms of our staff, buying a home. Yeah, that's exciting, isn't it? Which is very exciting. And it's good just like people go to the bank and organize their finance and get pre-approval. Come and see us and get like pre-approval with us in terms of buying a home. Because then you know, I mean, Simon, you're an accredited property specialist.
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It's the easiest to give you a phone call, have that 10 minute chat, and then we're able to let them move forward and they know that they have the comfort to ask questions before they sign the contract through the real estate agent. So I'm saying to all of those people out there, shoot in your contract, let me have a look at it for you. I'll give you some feedback. And you know, even real estate agents are sending contracts and clauses through and we're vetting them before they go out because to be prepared, you know, saves the problem later on.(...) A lot of people who I come across, of course, because I deal with a whole range of body corporate committees, in terms of the committees, those individuals, they've only ever dealt with their personal circumstances before, it's quite different when they're sitting on a body corporate committee. By coming to see us early as a body corporate committee, when they have changes within a body corporate as a whole, they think they have to deal with it themselves and they don't. There are so many dispute resolution methods that we can use here and early intervention makes the whole difference in disputes. And we've been able to help so many people(...) make their lives better by coming to us and guiding them on their journey or checking things out for them. We talked about me checking contracts before people sign them and quite often, it's something so small that it could be an incorrect completion of the finance condition, which means the contract's not subject to finance. If they sign it, they think it is, but they don't have a get out if they don't get their finance approved. So I'm sure in your areas, there's similar sort of experiences. It happens all the time. And it really is our motto. It's what we teach our younger staff members here as well.
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Our job is to make everyone's life better. So whether it's our body corporate manager or the real estate agent or our customer in terms of that, it's that making sure that we look at the contract or something before they execute it. And it only takes a little bit of time. One of our biggest areas in body corporate is building defects.
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So when we're repairing those, a building contract, everyone thinks about going to tender, getting the project manager, getting advice on a contract,(...) but the last person they think of is their solicitor(...) until they're having their general meeting or they want to sign the documents and then they come and see us. Come and see us earlier, and then we can make that process so much easier. So I'm hearing a lot from you today about planning and getting involved early. You mentioned wills and estates, and we'll talk about that in a later episode of the OMB Law Board. But if you're not doing your will and estate planning upfront, you're leaving a mess for your family and friends if something used to happen. We have some really interesting messes that we have to sort out because unfortunately it's often a body corporate who phones us and says the lot owner's passed away without a will.(...) Right, what happens then?(...) Then we, being OMB, on behalf of the body corporate, and it's a really strange role for the body corporate to play, are tracking down the next of kin and advising them they realize that someone's passed away but they had no idea or understanding that they held an asset. Yeah.
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The other one I think about, and we'll talk about it again in a later episode, is structuring. And I quite often find people who haven't sought prior advice about what structure to own or buy something in and find themselves in a bit of trouble later on. Oh, that's exactly right. I mean, I use Simon as my personal lawyer in terms of that. Well, that's good. As you know. Good choice. (Laughing)(...) I recently had an off the plane contract of sale that I signed. We had to terminate it. It didn't go ahead. Things didn't go well, didn't they? That's exactly right. Yeah. Unfortunately, I was then placed in a position where I could easily terminate, get my deposit back with some interest. That's right. So things, you know, we plan for the best but they don't always end up that way. But if you have OMB on board, hopefully we can make your lives better and protect you and walk you through that process. Now, if things go wrong, Juliette, I'm always worried and lawyers always get linked to litigation and fights in court. Now that's expensive and time consuming. How are we able to help people sort of avoid those situations? Well, that's exactly right. One, we want people to come early. So come and see us before you sign contractual obligations and make commitments, but let's say the event happens and you can't control that.(...) Whether it's an accident or whether you're involved in a debt dispute or commercial transaction, whatever it is. In terms of coming to see us early, that means before legal proceedings are on foot. Don't wait until you are served with a claim or statement of claim, or don't wait until you're getting close to a limitation period and you can't do the serving of a claim.(...) So when you come and see us early and every area, so in my area being body corporate, we have the body corporate commissioner's office,(...) which has a full conciliation process. And we find that sitting around a table, doing a conciliation or a mediation or dispute resolution first, means we can actually identify the key issues. So explain to our viewers mediation or conciliation. Is that, what's that?
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What it means, it's a more informal process. So at OMB, we facilitate it here because we have a room where people can come in and meet together, but also breakout rooms. And what it means is identifying quite clearly what the actual issues are in dispute, which sometimes can be resolved by an apology. Right. Right, because people's feelings are hurt or they have pain and suffering associated(...) with feeling disrespected in a relationship.
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Regarding conciliation, if it's about money, it's trying to work out what's an appropriate sum of money, which might pass between the parties in terms of resolving the dispute. But if we can sit down and identify issues early and put a motion to one side, but where people feel like they've been heard and the other person hears what they're saying, it allows us in a more informal, conciliatory process to resolve the issue.(...) So moving, if that doesn't work and we wanna move to a more formal process, that would be mediation, where there would be legal representation on behalf of both sides, but we'd have an independent mediator facilitating the conversation between the two. An area where that works very well is actually our Queensland Civil Administrative Tribunal. They actually force us as the parties, and sometimes we don't wanna go,(...) to go and have early conciliation, which is actually where I was yesterday in Brisbane.(...) As a result of that, it's settled, and we resolve the proceedings. And the great thing about settlement at those mediations and conciliation, it's 100% certain, it's in your control. If you take the gamble and you go to court, you do roll the dice, don't you? Yes, and control is a big factor. In terms of litigation, we always talk about the fact that even if we win and we're 100% successful in court,
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our client might be happy, but the happiness can fade because obviously, it's a judicial decision that's imposed upon people.(...) When you have control about making your own decisions and making your choice as to how you want the dispute to resolve, you are actually much happier. Yeah, I think that's a really good insight, and I'm sure our viewers today have really enjoyed you. Listening to you, Juliette, and I certainly, every time we talk, I learn something new, so thank you for coming along today, and I think all of those points you've raised point me back to our purpose here to make OMB a law firm that makes people's lives better, and I think through that process, we can achieve it. So thanks for being here today on the OMB Law Board. Thanks, Simon.