Sanaz Manii: registration suspended by OMARA on 24 Jul 2024
Registration suspended for a period. During it the agent may not lawfully give immigration assistance.
Reported from the OMARA disciplinary decisions register, read on 11 Sep 2026. The register is the authoritative source and it changes: decisions are reviewable, and suspensions and bars expire. Check it before you act on anything here.
What the Authority decided
On 24 July 2024, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (the Authority) decided to suspend Agent, Ms Sanaz Manii (MARN 1463387) from being registered as a migration agent for a period of six (6) months.
The Authority found that the Agent breached her obligations under clauses 2.1(b), 2.3, 2.4, 2.8 (b) & (d), 2.18, 2.19, 5.3 (a), and 6.1 of the former Code for registered migration agents. The Authority also found the Agent breached section 32 of the current Code for registered migration agents.
The Authority found that the Agent:
- Did not deal with her clients competently, diligently or fairly;
- Did not have sound working knowledge of relevant migration legislation, and due regard for her client’s dependence on her knowledge;
- Did not act in accordance with her client's instructions, and within a reasonable time after the case was decided to tell the client of the outcome (in writing);
- Did not act in a timely manner to lodge documentation in time for statutory deadlines;
- Failed in her duty to provide sufficient relevant information to the Department to allow a full assessment of all the facts against relevant criteria;
- Carried out work in a manner that unnecessarily increased the cost to her clients;
- Did not maintain proper records that could be made available for inspection on request from the Authority; and
- Failed to respond to requests from the Authority for information or documents.
The Agent’s suspension will be in effect for a period of six (6) months from the date of the Authority’s decision.
On 05 August 2024 the Administrative Appeals Tribunal granted a stay of the decision. Whilst the stay is in effect the Agent is permitted to provide immigration assistance.
On 01 November 2024 the Administrative Review Tribunal dismissed the agent's appeal. This means that the stay on the decision has ceased and that the agent cannot provide immigration assistance.
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
- Find out where your application actually is. If you have an ImmiAccount, log in. The clock does not stop because your representation did.
- 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.
- Get your file. Your documents are yours and the Code requires them back — originals first. How to get your file back.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
If you are named here and something does not match the published decision — including where a decision has since been set aside, varied, or has expired — tell us and we will correct or remove it. We report what the register says; when the register changes, this should change with it.
This page reports a regulator's decision and explains in general terms what that kind of decision means. It is not immigration assistance and not legal advice, and it cannot take your circumstances into account. Only a registered migration agent or an Australian legal practitioner may advise you on your own application.
Finding someone else
Post what you need and registered migration agents and Australian legal practitioners quote you for it in writing — a fixed fee, or an hourly rate with an hours estimate, GST included, with government charges itemised separately so a cheap-looking quote cannot quietly leave one out. Applicants pay nothing. Every quote carries the individual's MARN or practising certificate details, so you can run the same check that brought you here.
VisaBid does not give immigration assistance, is not a migration agent, and takes no percentage of anybody's fee.