Hadi Payami: registration suspended by OMARA on 15 Nov 2023

What the Authority decided

On 15 November 2023, OMARA decided to cancel the registration of registered migration agent Hadi PAYAMI (MARN 2318053). As a result of an investigation into one complaint, the OMARA was satisfied that the Agent had breached sections 13 and 29 of the Code of Conduct for registered migration agents.

The OMARA found that:

• Shortly after OMARA approved the Agent’s initial application for registration, the Agent was informed by the English language testing service (ETS) that the Agent’s English Language Proficiency scores had been cancelled because unauthorised recording devices/software were open during the test session in violation of ETS policy
• The Agent did not inform the OMARA that he no longer had evidence of English language proficiency and therefore could not satisfy a mandatory requirement to be registered as a migration agent
• The Agent did not inform the OMARA of the change to his circumstances which would likely have a negative impact of the OMARA’s satisfaction as to whether the Agent was a person of integrity or otherwise a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance as required by section 29 of the Code of Conduct
• The Agent failed to act with honesty and integrity contrary to section 13 of the Code of Conduct.

The OMARA was satisfied that the Agent is not a person of integrity and is not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance.

A copy of the decision with personal information redacted is available below.

The Agent has lodged an application for review of the decision with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The review application does not permit the Agent to provide immigration assistance.

On 06 August 2024 the Tribunal substituted the cancellation decision with a suspension until the Agent successfully achieves the scores required in the Instrument at an English Language test undertaken in a supervised English Language test Centre test centre.

The decision summary above is reproduced from the Authority's published record of this decision, which also carries the decision document itself. Nothing has been added to it.

What a suspension means if this was your agent

The registration is suspended for a set period. During it the agent may not lawfully give immigration assistance — not to you, not to anyone. Section 280 of the Migration Act makes paid immigration assistance by an unregistered person a criminal offence, and a suspended agent is unregistered for the duration.

This is the outcome that most often catches people mid-matter, because the agent is still there and the suspension has an end date. If your matter can wait, it may be able to wait. If you have a response deadline from the Department inside the suspension period, it cannot.

If this was your agent: the first week

1. Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
2. Check who the Department is writing to. A Form 956 makes an agent the authorised recipient, and correspondence sent to them is taken to have been given to you. A deadline sent to an inbox nobody reads is still a deadline.
3. Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
4. Work out what was paid and what was done. Ask for the itemised invoices and receipts the Code requires. Routes to recover money work better started early.
5. Complain, if there is something to complain about. A published decision does not close your own file. Where to complain, and what OMARA can and cannot do.
6. Only then, find someone else. A new agent needs the file and the dates. The first five steps are what make that first conversation useful instead of exploratory.

What this decision does not mean

It is a decision about one individual on one date. Only a person can be a registered migration agent — a company cannot — so it says nothing about anyone else at the same practice. Decisions of this kind are reviewable, and bars and suspensions expire. The register is where the current position lives.

Decision information sourced from the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. VisaBid is not affiliated with OMARA or the Department of Home Affairs.