Many of you may not be aware that from 2 June 2014, Australia Post introduced a 2nd delivery timetable. The delivery timetable that we have all grown up with now has a slower cousin. Mail delivered via the ‘Priority’ timetable will still occur on a daily basis, however, its slower and cheaper cousin only has its mail delivered one or two days after that delivered under the ‘Priority’ system. The slower timetable is called ‘Regular’.
Depending upon the way you send your mail, how your mail is delivered will dictate the timetable relevant to your correspondence. The Corporations Act places strict timetables around the amount of notice that an Insolvency Practitioner must give when, for example, calling for Formal Proofs of Debt or in convening Meetings of Creditors.
Whilst regular stamped mail defaults to the ‘Priority’ system, some envelopes used for business letter products default to the slower ‘Regular’ system… so check which system your office is using.
Those Practitioners who fail to take notice of how their mail is delivered may inadvertently find themselves not providing enough notice and thereby fail to comply with the law.
Here is a Link to the Australia Post brochure for your further reading.
A bird on the wire has told me that Australia Post is soon to introduce a delivery regime in selected remote/country areas where no matter how you send your letter, they will only deliver on certain days. Again this will impact upon those administrations with creditors or stakeholders in those remote/country areas.
Many offices will have timetable checklists to assist their staff in getting the mailing of notices correct. These checklists will refer to ‘clear days’. If you don’t know what a clear day is then take a look at ASIC’s RG7-Calculating time periods. (in particular para 7.4)
Adrian Hunter 