Mortgage brokers are hailing the move by Commonwealth Bank of Australia not to count HECS bills as debt in home loan assessments if they are due for repayment within a year.

CBA said it is also “piloting” dropping the serviceability buffer to 1%, from its current 3%, for those due to pay off their student debt within five years.

The serviceability buffer is set by regulator Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), requiring banks to assess home loan applications at an interest rate three percentage points higher than the current rate.

The move by Australia’s biggest home lender is expected to see thousands more young people instantly qualify for home loans.

CBA’s executive manager of home buying Michael Baumann said CommBank…

But he will still appear on the WA Senate ballot paper, as electoral laws do not allow the commission to reject a fully completed nomination “regardless of whether any answer to a question of the qualification checklist is incorrect, false or inadequate”.

A man who took his fight against an $80 speeding ticket all the way to the Supreme Court, and lost at nearly every turn, racked up $34,000 in legal fees and was declared bankrupt when he couldn’t pay them.

Peter Prescott has now failed to have his bankruptcy annulled, and is liable to pay more legal fees to the New Zealand Police after another unsuccessful trip to court.

In July 2016, Prescott was caught driving 64km/h in a 50km/h zone and was sent a ticket for it. However, he tried to claim he wasn’t driving the car, nor did he own it.

When he didn’t pay the fine and the matter went to court, Prescott didn’t show up and he was fined a further $80 and $30 in court costs.

Two years later, Prescott unsuccessfully appealed the…

A celebrity wedding planner has sparked concern after she missed a key court date and quit her home in a ritzy suburb, just weeks after she was declared bankrupt for a second time.

The NSW Supreme Court has previously found Kashaya Nerez Williams, 39, used a forged letter to inherit her dead grandfather’s home in bitter family row over his will.

The former florist was declared bankrupt and had her assets seized in the wake of the decision, as relatives tried to recover their share of the inheritance.

Last month she was declared bankrupt yet again, and this week she was due back in court to be sentenced on traffic charges for speeding and driving while suspended.

But she failed to appear, and her former neighbours at the address she gave…

The notorious cricket spot-fixer who has become a leading player in the big-money world of boxing has been declared bankrupt.

Mazhar Majeed, 40, who was sentenced to 32 months in prison in 2011 for his role in the corruption of a Test match between England and Pakistan at Lord’s, acts as an adviser to Chris Eubank Jr, who fights Conor Benn at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on April 26.

A Sunday Times investigation last year revealed the extent of Majeed’s influence in boxing and his links to Boxxer, the promotional company co-founded by Ben Shalom that was awarded a four-year exclusive contract worth £36million by Sky in 2021.

The promoter paid in excess of £300,000 to Star People, a company solely owned by Majeed’s wife, for

Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered how to stop tech companies spying on your phone as Trump promises mass deportations.

The DNA testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy after months of concern over its financial health and its ability to keep users’ genetic information secure. In light of the uncertainty looming over the company’s future, you should do one thing to protect your privacy today: delete your 23andMe account.

If you have used the service to discover your ancestry via your DNA, the extremely sensitive information you shared with 23andMe may transfer to the company’s eventual buyer. While…