HIV Disclosure case

The "not guilty" decision in the case of an HIV positive man charged with criminal nuisance for not disclosing his status during protected vaginal intercourse and unprotected oral sex is good news for all HIV Positive people in New Zealand.

The decision means an HIV positive person does not need to disclose their status if they take appropriate precautions eg uses a condom for anal or vaginal intercourse. The law still makes an offence to have unprotected sex without disclosure.

Lots of discussion in the media about the morality of when one should disclose from the NZAF welcoming the decision to Family Life International seeing the decision as the proof of the moral decay of the New Zealand family.

In more disturbing news it looks like New Zealand is following the overseas trend with an upsurge in the number gay men testing positive. While the Sunday Star Times is a bit dramatic - HIV - now it's our most deadly computer virus - it discusses an important issue for all sexually active people, especially men who have sex with men.

Moving House

Wondering why QNA and the blog died the day it started.

Well our landlord hadn't paid his mortgage so we end up been forced to move.

Fortunately within a week we had moved but way to much chaos.

The bad news is we are still waiting for the bond form to be signed by the real estate company (Laing & Simmons Pyrmont). So now we have begun the process and have to wait another 14 days for them to either respond or the bond will be returned to us.

This is not suprising as from the day we signed up with this company we have what can only be described as worse than the Fawlty Tower level of service. Only our continual fighting of them with constant phone calls, emails, faxes and finally taking matters to the Tenancy Tribunal ever got anything resolved.

What we didn't know when we signed up with Laing & Simmons Pyrmont is that they are part of the same company which manages Laing & Simmons Pott Point.

Laing & Simmons Pott Point were one of the real estate companies we dealt with when first moving over to Sydney.

This company acted illegally in a number of ways. One property we saw wasn't supposed to be shown to tenants as it was still been finished. We liked it anyway and put our deposit down. Then 3 days later got asked if we could put the rent up in our application and then they suggested a 2 month bond (illegal under NSW law). A week later we were turned down but it took again 4 weeks and threat of legal action to get our deposit back!

In contrast when we dealt with Oxford Real Estate they processed our application within an hour and we moved in the next day! Our bond when we left was received within 4 days.

So thinking of moving to Sydney just don't be frightened to ask the real estate agent how they process applications. Keep hassling them if they are slack and don't be frightened to take them to the tenancy tribunal. Best thing is to make sure you know what your rights are.