Eidy Douglas: registration barred by OMARA on 15 Apr 2024

What the Authority decided

On 15 April 2024, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (the Authority) decided to bar the Former Agent Ms Eidy Douglas (MARN 1573017), from applying to be a registered as a migration agent,

The Authority found that the Former Agent breached her obligations under clauses 2.1(b), 2.3, 2.4, 2.8, 2.17, 2.23 and 5.3, of the former Code for registered migration agents.

The Authority found that the Former Agent:

• Lodged visa applications and review applications with no hope of success;
• Did not have sound working knowledge of relevant migration legislation and due regard for her client’s dependence on her knowledge;
• Unnecessarily incurred additional significant costs to her clients;
• Did not act competently and failed to provide any evidence of any notes of interaction with her clients.

The Former Agent is barred from applying to be a registered migration agent for a period of two (2) years from the date of the Authority’s decision.

The Former Agent made an application for review by the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

On 27 November 2024 the Administrative Review Tribunal varied the decision under section 103 of the ART Act as the parties had reached an agreement.

An abridged version of the decision, with names removed for privacy reasons is available on the disciplinary pages of www.mara.gov.au

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 bar means if this was your agent

A bar is made under section 311A of the Migration Act and applies to a former registered agent — someone whose registration had already ceased, so there was nothing left to cancel. The Authority may bar them from being registered again for up to five years.

If this person was acting for you, they were not a registered migration agent at the time of the decision. Check what has actually been lodged in your name.

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.