VCAT Hearing

Today I went to my first VCAT hearing. For those who are unfamiliar, VCAT stands for the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The pupose of them, is they are the ones who give the “order” that our clients no longer have the capacity to manage their financial affairs, due to many reasons. Sometimes the client, or someone will “challenge” the order for various reasons. And it is usually at this time, we as consultants, have to attend these VCAT hearings.

So the one I went to today, was in Geelong. It was about 1.5 hour trip with a guy I hardly know. However, the VCAT hearing was an interesting one. The information I was given before hand, was that the son, who, during the time he were the administrator of the father’s financial affairs, pretty much spent a lot of his money, for himself. It’s pretty evident, because he has hardly any money left (let’s say he had 150,000 from a settlement, and now has 30,000 left). At the tribunal hearing, the VCAT woman asked “where has all the money gone.” The son was like “We’ve paid for furniture, moving expenses, and dad bought me car so I could help him out…etc.” The VCAT woman was like “well, I can sort of estimate how much that’d be, and that doesn’t equal up to 150,000.” So the VCAT woman has given this guy 2-3 months to have all of the receipts and finances figured out, so that they can figure out whether there were misappropriation of funds.

The hearing was a great experience for me. Even though it wasn’t like going to court, it sort of was. Next week, I am going to 2 other VCAT hearings. It will be interesting to hear their cases, and if it will be a “juicy” case or not.

-current mood-HUNGRY, need to go find something to eat.