Directors’ Duties and Insolvency Recovery Claims

You buy a home to feel secure. When the walls start leaking, that certainty disappears. People often describe the same mix of feelings, stress about health and mould, fear about resale, and anger that a normal family purchase has turned into a long problem. Property disputes - what a leaky home claim is A leaky or defective home claim seeks compensation for the cost of fixing building defects and the losses that flow from them. These claims often involve multiple parties, such as builders, developers, designers, and sometimes councils, and they rely heavily on expert evidence about defects and repair costs. Good claims are built around practical evidence, photos, moisture testing, and a building expert report identifying what went wrong and what it will cost to put right. When people bring one People usually seek advice when they receive an expert report confirming defects, when repairs are beyond DIY or patching, or when a body corporate needs a coordinated plan. Time limits can matter, so early legal advice after a consultant report can protect options. Dispute resolution How the process can be made practical with litigation funding Because repairs can be expensive, many homeowners look for no win no fee or contingency fee style options. Litigation funding can be available for suitable leaky home claims. It involves an external funder (separate from our firm) funding some or all legal costs in return for an agreed share of any recovery. Litigation funding sits alongside pro bono work and civil legal aid as a tool that can support access to justice. Holland Beckett actively works in all three areas and we will look for options that make a strong claim achievable. Talk to us If you suspect your home is leaking or has serious defects, contact our civil litigation lawyers. We are well versed in property disputes, and can help you understand the strength of the claim, who may be responsible, and the most practical way to fund the process.

You finished the work. You sent the claim. Then the payment date passes and nothing happens. For a small contractor, that gap can swallow wages, materials, tax, and sleep. The issue is not just cash, it is whether you are being treated fairly for work already delivered. What is a Construction Payment Claim? A construction payment claim is a way to recover money you are owed for building and civil works. These types of commercial disputes often arise when a principal, head contractor, or developer disputes a progress claim, holds back retention, or refuses to pay for variations or delays. These disputes often turn on documents, such as the contract, payment claims and schedules, site records, and quantity surveying evidence. That makes them well suited to a fast, structured approach. When should you consider a Payment Claim? People usually seek advice when payment is withheld without a clear explanation, when a payment schedule is late or inadequate, or when a project ends and the final account remains unpaid. A common pattern is a disagreement about whether work was within scope, whether variations were approved, or whether defects justify withholding payment. Adjudication for Construction Disputes In many cases you can use a statutory adjudication process to obtain a quick decision about what must be paid and when. This is often an effective form of dispute resolution for construction payment disputes. Holland Beckett has experience representing construction companies in adjudication proceedings concerning payment claims, defective works, and variations. Litigation funding for Construction Payment Claims Some clients ask about a no win no fee or contingency fee option because funding a dispute while chasing payment feels backwards. Litigation funding can be available for suitable matters. It involves an external funder (separate from our firm) funding some or all legal costs in return for an agreed share of any recovery. Litigation funding is one tool, sitting alongside pro bono work and civil legal aid, that can help provide access to justice. Holland Beckett actively works in all three areas and we look for practical ways to keep a strong claim moving. Talk to us If you are owed money on a project, talk to our civil litigation and dispute resolution team early. We can assess the documents, explain the quickest pathway, and discuss cost options, including whether litigation funding may be available.

Privacy concerns are ever mounting. And yet it is easy to assume that privacy breaches only happen to some other organisation or business. But the recent privacy incident involving Manage My Health challenges that assumption. Privacy breaches can happen to anyone. The real issue is not whether a privacy breach will happen to you. It is whether your systems are set up to prevent it. What happened in the Manage My Health breach? Manage My Health is an online portal used by health providers and patients to store and access health information. A cyberattack compromised the platform in late 2025. The attackers used stolen login credentials to access a single patient account. The attack should have been contained to the single compromised account. It was not. Instead, weaknesses in access controls meant that one compromised account was used to access and extract information from thousands of other accounts. In total, just under 100,000 patients were affected. A large portion of the data came from hospital discharge records that had been stored in the system as part of a wider digital project. Why privacy controls failed The Privacy Commissioner was notified and investigated the breach. The Commissioner identified a host of failures. Multi-factor authentication was not enforced. Monitoring systems did not detect unusual activity. Vulnerabilities had been identified before but not properly resolved. Governance and risk assessment processes were present but did not lead to effective action. Both the portal provider and the public health agency involved were found to have failed to meet the standard of “reasonable security safeguards”. Privacy compliance is more than a policy Most organisations approach privacy in two ways. They have a policy. It aligns with the Privacy Act. It sits on the website. They have an incident response plan. If something goes wrong, there is a process to follow. Both matter. Neither would have prevented this breach. For many organisations, effective privacy risk management requires more than policies and procedures. It requires governance, accountability and ongoing operational oversight. The investigation points to a different issue. The systems themselves were not secure enough. Privacy controls existed, but they did not work effectively. Decisions about access and usability exposed data to risk. Known issues were identified but not properly resolved. The findings show that privacy controls must work in practice. Multi-factor authentication was optional, monitoring did not detect large-scale access, and data extraction went unchecked. Controls need to be enforced and tested against real scenarios so that a compromised account cannot move beyond its intended scope. They also show that the risks of others belong to you. There was heavy reliance on the provider’s own assurances about security, with limited independent checking or ongoing verification. Organisations need to test those assurances and maintain oversight throughout the life of the relationship, not just at the outset. This highlights the importance of undertaking due diligence on third-party technology providers and obtaining appropriate legal advice when managing sensitive information. Privacy by design: building privacy into your systems Finally, the report shows that privacy must shape system design. Risk assessment came too late and did not properly inform how data was stored or matched to accounts. Privacy needs to be built into the design of systems so that sensitive information is only ever put into environments where it can be properly controlled. Talk to us The Manage My Health incident and Commisioner’s investigation highlights that privacy risk stems from systems, not just policies or breach response plans. Holland Beckett’s approach reflects that. Our privacy advice is more than policy writing and incident planning. We work with clients to understand how their systems operate, where risk sits within those systems, and what needs to change before issues arise. If you would like a privacy health check, want to identify where your risks sit, need to build a clear response plan, or legal advice regarding your privacy obligations, get in touch with our team.