Help my friend rebuild what injustice took away

Help support my courageous friend as she faces the loss of her home, business, income, transport and livelihood.

My friend, a very proud woman in her 50’s needs help from the community after enduring 3 years of extremely challenging post separation system and financial abuse.

Please help my friend, as faces one of the hardest challenges ahead.

Here is a snapshot of her story:

My friend purchased her home 26 years ago and raised her child there from birth. Now 21, has also been forced to leave the family home, the only home ever known. In 2009, as a single mom, she worked tirelessly to establish and grow her home-based business to allow her to work from home and provide for her family.

In this home, she single-handedly maintained financial stability and independence for herself and her child. In 2012, she began a new relationship with someone she trusted, and he moved into her home, marking the start of their de facto relationship. Six years later, in 2018, when she attempted to end the relationship, he threatened to take her home and business if she made him leave. It took 12 months for him to leave.

In an act of vengeance, years after they separated, with the help of his accountant, he prepared, finalised and lodged a decade's worth of incomplete tax returns, resulting in a substantial debt exceeding $300,000, which included unpaid taxes, GST, penalties, fines, and interest. A debt she did not even know about.

He summoned her with court proceedings for a property settlement. For the next 3 years she was entangled in a system she knew nothing about, defending her home and business against a man intent on exploiting her property for his own financial gain.

Flaws in Family Law and Taxation have unfairly made my friend accountable for a debt created by this man.

The court ruled his tax debts as shared, leaving her with a debt she didn’t know about, didn’t cause, and can’t afford. He then claimed a large share of her family home, to which he had no moral or ethical right. She also lost her means of transportation.

As a result, her home is being forcibly sold at a public auction on Saturday, 31st August by court order, where she will lose her entire livelihood, income, independence and community that has been her life for almost 3 decades and her child's family home since birth.

Due to ongoing legal proceedings, my friend has had to refinance her home, to pay for legal expenses leaving her with no funds or transport.

Family Law have failed to hold him accountable for his debt or to recognise the tactics he employed to strip her of everything that mattered most. Shockingly, the court has ordered him to receive his tax debt value, plus a share of her home in a cash sum from the sale of her property. There is not even any requirement or obligation for him to pay his tax debt with the funds he receives.

During this fight, she has tirelessly reached out to over 40 organisations and individuals, including government bodies, for help. The changes in legislation are in a draft format and currently do not recognise financial or economic abuse, leaving her without any protection. As a complete miscarriage of justice, she has been ordered to surrender to a failed and broken system, that has stolen her and her son’s home.

“The courts decision effectively holds me responsible for paying a tax debt of a grown man who runs his own business and managed his own finances, failed to pay GST on his earnings and failed to pay income tax, whilst accruing interest fines and penalties. By incorporating fines, penalties and interest etc into the property settlement, it has deemed me responsible for managing him, which is not my role.”

With what little is left after the sale, she will have to pay her loan for the ongoing legal expenses, surrender her business and be left without an income until she can completely rebuild her life and start again.

Despite losing her mother 7 months into these proceedings, she has actively challenged the way the current legislation fails. She has made submissions into the Parliamentary Hearing into Financial abuse, detailing the failures of the ATO and the Family Court, as an attempt to change legalisation and prevent this happening to anyone else. She continues to create awareness that includes interviews with the ABC, Mamamia and mentions in newspapers. She will not give up on this.

She has fiercely advocated for change and continues to tell her story of loss, greed and systemic failures, while educating and offering support to others experiencing this. Starting her own campaign, www.thisismyhome.online my friend is bringing to the forefront, what this form of abuse looks like, where it is enabled and the injustice within the frameworks of systems that should be about protection.

She describes losing everything compounded with the loss of her mother throughout this, as devastating, "the loss of our family's history and identity, my future, and most of all my legacy to my child, a place where to maintain a connection to our family’s past has ultimately been stolen."

Despite the trauma and loss she has endured, my friend remains committed to her sense of civic responsibility. She tirelessly advocates for others facing similar situations and continues to actively engage at every level, even as she navigates her own grief and loss.

“During the court proceedings, my mother passed away, and I have channelled my energy into advocating for and raising awareness about the systemic failures within the family court system. I have seen something I cannot unsee.”

However, despite her stoicism, she desperately needs help, and I am asking the community for assistance.

Please help her get back on her feet, to rebuild her entire life after the forcible sale of her home and business so she can begin to start again.

Her strong sense of community and support has only increased through this ordeal. Even while being dragged through the courts grieving, she still continues to provide assistance and support to anyone who is in need, from neighbours, to clients, and the greater community. “This is what community is."

If you can contribute even a little to support our friend, please do. Share this link with your friends, family, and network to help her through this challenging time with our collective support. Thank you.