Ramona Martinovici: registration barred by OMARA on 27 Aug 2024

What the Authority decided

On 27 August 2024, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority (the Authority) decided to bar the Former Agent Ms Romona Martinovici (MARN 1383584) from applying to be a registered as a migration agent.

The Authority found that the Former Agent, whilst registered, breached her obligations under clauses 2.1(a), 2.1(b), 2.3, 2.8(b), 2.8(c), 2.9A, 2.18, 2.21, 5.2(c) and 6.1 of the former Code for registered migration agents.

The Authority found that the Former Agent:

• Knowingly submitted a nomination application without the specified accompanying documents;
• Did not have a sound working knowledge of the relevant migration legislation and due regard for her clients’ dependence on her knowledge;
• Did not act on the instructions of her client and failed to lodge a visa application after she had been engaged and paid to do so;
• Did not act competently and in the legitimate interest of her clients, causing unnecessary delay, cost and/or anguish to her clients;
• Did not provided to a signed Agreement for Service and Fees;
• Did not provide evidence from her client file about dealings with her client.

The Former Agent’s barring will be in effect for a period of three (3) years from the date of the Authority’s decision.

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

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.