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The Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 came into operation on 1 July 1976 and established an independent body for the review of decisions made under Commonwealth legislation - the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).
The AAT is concerned with reviewing the merits of decisions made by Ministers and officials under delegated authority in specified cases provided for by legislation.
With the enacting of the Defence Service Homes Amendment Act 1988, certain decisions made under the DSH Act since 19 December 1988 have been reviewable decisions with appeal rights to the AAT. The DSH Act provides generally that an adverse decision made by an authority under the Act (the Secretary or the Minister) or by its delegate, in relation to an application for assistance, must be advised in writing to the person whose interests are affected by the decision. The decision should be accompanied by a statement of the reasons for the decision and of the person's right to have the decision reviewed. That right, and the arrangements which apply in the event of the person exercising that right, are specified in the DSH Act. It is important to note that decisions made in respect of insurance claims and underwriting are not reviewable decisions as defined in Section 4(1) of the Defence Service Homes Act 1918.
The purpose of this Part of the General Orders is to provide general guidance and information on procedural matters associated with implementing and administering the policy outlined in the Legislation Interpretation & Policy Parts. It is not intended that this Part be taken to be a comprehensive procedural manual for all tasks undertaken. Rather, Managers and delegated officers are to use their own discretion in such matters. Procedures should be flexible enough to take account of any local arrangements, yet at the same time result in clients receiving uniformly high standards of quality service and advice.
The foregoing Legislation Interpretation & Policy Parts are aimed at achieving a uniformly correct and fair way of dealing with all casework under the Defence Service Homes Act 1918.
In addition to policy considerations, there are some procedural matters which also need to be addressed in a uniformly acceptable way and these matters are set out in this Part.
An application for a Certificate of Entitlement must be on an approved application form. Because of its legal nature, a Certificate of Entitlement may contain no erasures or amendments. The Certificate of Entitlement is to be issued in triplicate to the applicant with a photocopy retained with the application. The Certificate of Entitlement must be presented to the Bank at the time client applies for relevant assistance.
For instalment relief, the Certificate of Entitlement is sent direct to the Bank via Bank's internal mail system (DSHL Unit, The Mortgage Company, SA BSB 035-892), with a photocopy being retained with the application.
When a Certificate of Entitlement is issued, the following details are required to be noted thereon;
A delegate is required to personally sign the certificate.
Provision has been made for the file numbers appearing on Certificates of Entitlement to contain a maximum of 15 digits. Presently 12 are used. The new Certificate of Entitlement file number is made up as follows:-
This file number is essentially an identifier for the Bank.
An example of a file number as it will appear on the Certificate of Entitlement is shown below:-
Any original document produced as evidence of service or other document required to establish eligibility for assistance, eg Marriage Certificate, Death Certificate, etc should be photocopied and kept with the application. All original documents returned to an applicant by post should be sent by Certified Mail.
Officers should exercise care to ensure that documents (either originals or photocopies) have not obviously been altered in any way before accepting them as evidence. If there is any doubt, the original should be requested as a precautionary measure.
Where it appears that an applicant has made a false declaration, the circumstances of the case should be referred through the Administration Manager (DHOAS) to the nominated liaison officer who will discuss the case with the Director of Public Prosecutions Liaison Officer (DPPLO). The DPPLO will assist with the decision as to whether a case is suitable for prosecution. Any action regarding prosecution should follow the guidelines contained in the Benefits Prosecution Guidelines Chapters 2.3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.
When advice is received of the marriage [de jure or de facto] of two eligible persons each in receipt of subsidised advances on separate properties, action to cancel one of the subsidies should not be taken as a matter of course. [ss.26.4 and Entitlement GO 3.7.9 refer].
As mentioned in Entitlement GO 3.7.9, this power is discretionary and has been in the legislation well before the insertion of the amendments allowing portability and the pooling of entitlements. Given the pooling provision, and presuming both parties met the entitlement criteria (ie did not own another dwelling etc) at the time they received their Certificates of Entitlement, action to cancel one of the subsidies would not normally be taken. Clients should, however, be made aware of their options should they be contemplating selling either or both of the DSH funded dwellings. Assuming either or both have an entitlement to a further advance, they are:-
Before being issued with Certificates of Entitlement under either option, clients would still need to satisfy the other conditions imposed by the legislation, such as continuing service eligibility, non-ownership of other dwelling-houses, and intention to occupy. The final decision is to be left to the applicants, particularly in view of the costs involved.
Each eligible person will be allocated a file number when applying for an Initial Advance. Two file numbers are also allocated where a widow/widower who is also an Australian soldier pools both entitlements.
2.4.11.1 Death of an eligible party. In the event that one of the parties dies, the deceased person's loan will continue because the surviving party automatically becomes the sole owner by survivorship. The other eligible party will, therefore, be repaying both loans and both file numbers will remain active.
2.4.11.2 Transfer cases. When one party's interest is being transferred to the other, the application is to be treated in accordance with Entitlement GO 10.6. Under that GO, each eligible person's loan entitlement is to be protected for individual use. The file numbers allocated to each entitlement remain with the individual.
2.4.11.3 Insurance. Insurance may attach to either file number in pooled use of entitlements cases. In the case of:-
Where insurance attaches to the file number of a spouse/party that dies, the file number used for insurance purposes would remain unchanged (See GO's 2.4.10.1-2 above).
Where the file number attaching to the insurance relates to the qualifying person who is now not the insured party, the file number for insurance purposes must be changed to the file number of the person who is the insured.
NOTE: It may be possible for two insurance policies to have been assigned the one file number (eg portability/transfers).
There are several categories of insurance-only clients:
NOTE: Persons who have revoked DSH entitlement in favour of the ADFHLA — S Scheme already have a file number.
NOTE: These people will be allowed to retain DSH insurance while they remain in the house in respect of which a subsidised advance had been made.
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