Nguyen v Nguyen (No. 2) [2019] NSWSC 1103

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: Nguyen v Nguyen (No. 2) [2019] NSWSC 1103 Hearing dates: 16 August 2019 Date of orders: 27 August 2019 Decision date: 27 August 2019 Jurisdiction: Equity Before: Slattery J Decision: Parties directed to bring in short minutes of order to give effect to the Court's reasons. Parties to bear their own costs of the accounting hearing. Catchwords: CIVIL PROCEDURE – Hearings – Accounting Hearing – plaintiff and defendant declared to be respectively 40 to 60% owners of real property – accounts directed to be taken in respect of the respective use and occupation of the property by each of the defendant and the plaintiff since March 2009 – construction of the agreement made between the plaintiff and the defendant – determination of what payments are required between them by their agreement – whether particular items should be allowed or disallowed in the final accounting between the parties. Cases Cited: Nguyen v Nguyen [2019] NSWSC 131 Category: Consequential orders (other than Costs) Parties: Plaintiff: Thi Anh Thuy Nguyen Defendant: Anh Tuan Nguyen Representation: Counsel: Plaintiff: B Zipser Defendant: J Shaw;

Solicitors: Plaintiff: Thi Truc Mai Dang, Integrity Legal Specialists Defendant: Keith Wilson Ewart, F W Ewart & Ewart;

16 August 2019: defendant appears in person File Number(s): 2015/151521 Publication restriction: No

Judgment 1. This is the Court's second judgment in these proceedings. The Court's first judgment found that the plaintiff and the defendant had agreed to hold their respective interests in a Terrigal property, in the ratio of 40:60; Nguyen v Nguyen [2019] NSWSC 131 ("the first judgment"), (at [166]). 2. The Court's first judgment contemplated that the parties would need to undertake an accounting of the receipts and expenditure of each of them in relation to the Terrigal property, in light of the Court's declaration of the parties' respective interests in the property. 3. This judgment deals with those accounting issues. It assumes a reading of the first judgment. Events, matters and persons are referred to in both judgments in the same way. 4. The Court fixed the final accounting hearing for Friday, 16 August 2019. On that occasion, Mr B Zipser of counsel continued to appear for the plaintiff, instructed by Thi Truc Mai Dang, of Integrity Legal Specialists. 5. The defendant, Dr Nguyen, appeared for himself. Mr Shaw of counsel appeared for Dr Nguyen at the main hearing. Dr Nguyen claimed he had engaged Mr J Shaw of counsel to appear again. But Mr Shaw was not present. There appears to have been disagreement between Dr Nguyen and Mr Shaw as to whether he was available to appear on 16 August 2019. 6. But Dr Nguyen did not seek an adjournment. Moreover, the small amount of money in issue at this stage of the proceedings does not warrant an adjournment to explore the possibility of the attendance of counsel. The matter proceeded.