Chang, in the matter of Chang v Chang

1. This is a second application to review of a decision by a Judicial Registrar in relation to a Bankruptcy Notice BN278403 (the Bankruptcy Notice), that was issued at the request of the Respondent (who I will refer to as "Victor"). I dealt with the first application (by Victor to review a decision to extend time to comply with the Bankruptcy Notice) in Chang, in the matter of Chang v Chang [2025] FCA 1259 (Chang v Chang (No 1)).
2. In this application, the Applicant (who I will refer to as "Holly") seeks review of a decision by the Judicial Registrar on 5 November 2025 to dismiss Holly's application to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice. For the following reasons, that review application should be dismissed: there is no proper basis for setting aside the Bankruptcy Notice. To be clear, that means the Judicial Registrar's order dismissing Holly's application to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice remains in force, and that application is dismissed.

1. The background to the matter is set out in Chang v Chang (No 1) at [3]-[16]. Since judgment was given in Chang v Chang (No 1), the following events have occurred.
2. Time for compliance extended to 31 October (20 October 2025): The orders made on 16 October 2025 initially extended the time for complying with the Bankruptcy Notice until 28 October 2025, which was expected to be the day after the Supreme Court of Victoria handed down its judgment in appeals brought by Holly against the orders which gave rise to the judgment debt underpinning the Bankruptcy Notice. On 20 October 2025, I extended the time for compliance to 31 October 2025, which was the first date on which the Judicial Registrar could hold a hearing in the remitted matter.
3. Registrar dismisses application to set aside bankruptcy notice (5 Nov 2025): The remitted matter was heard by the Judicial Registrar on 31 October 2025 and again on 5 November 2025. On 5 November 2025, the Judicial Registrar made the following orders:
   1. Order 1 of the orders of 31 October 2025 [which had given Holly a further extension of time until 30 November 2025] be vacated nunc pro tunc.
   2. The time for the Applicant to comply with Bankruptcy Notice Number BN278403 issued on 29 May 2025 (the Bankruptcy Notice) is extended to 4:00pm (AEDT) on 6 November 2025.
   3. The Applicant's application to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice accepted for filing on 18 June 2025 is otherwise dismissed.

1. Application for review (Nov 2025): On 5 November 2025, Holly applied for review of the Judicial Registrar's orders. Most relevantly, Holly seeks to have the Judicial Registrar's orders set aside (proposed order 1), or to have the Court reinstate and determine Holly's application to have the Bankruptcy Notice set aside (proposed order 2), and for enforcement of the Bankruptcy Notice be stayed pending final determination (proposed order 3).
2. Holly's application raises nine grounds of review, which can be summarised as follows:
   • Holly contends that the Judicial Registrar dismissed the application to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice on the mistaken premise that the application had already been determined on 22 August 2025 (the date of the decision which was the subject of the first review proceedings leading to Chang v Chang (No 1)) (see grounds 1-4).
   • Holly contends that the Judicial Registrar denied Holly procedural fairness by (a) failing to confirm whether any refusal actually occurred; and (b) dismissing the application without hearing from the Applicant on the issue (ground 5). It is said further that the Judicial Registrar wrongly considered that she was functus officio (ground 6).
   • Holly contends that the underlying debt is disputed on substantial grounds because the costs orders are the subject of an appeal in the Supreme Court (ground 8).
   • Holly contends that the Bankruptcy Notice is being used as an abuse of process, including to exert pressure during ongoing Supreme Court proceedings concerning disputed trust and beneficial ownership interests (ground 9).
3. The application states (in ground 10) that further grounds are set out in Holly's affidavit. She filed an affidavit dated 5 November 2025. That affidavit includes paragraphs in the nature of submissions about "procedural unfairness" (section E), and "disputes as to debt and abuse of process" (section F).
4. Victor's undertaking in the Supreme Court (11 Nov 2025): On 13 November 2025, Hannon J of the Supreme Court made orders adjourning Holly's application for a stay of enforcement. Those orders record (in Recital F) that Victor gave the following undertaking:
   1. On 11 November 2025, the plaintiff [Victor] gave a written undertaking to the Court by email:

I provide a formal undertaking to the Court that I will not file any creditor's petition against Ms Holly Chang before the next business day after the delivery of Her Honour Justice Hannon's reserved judgments in proceedings S ECI 2021 01122 and S ECI 2022 04357. (Emphasis added)

1. Supreme Court appeal dismissed (19 Nov 2025): On 19 November 2025, Hannon J of the Supreme Court gave judgment in proceedings S ECI 2021 01122 and S ECI 2022 04357: Holly Chang v Victor Chang (Appeals and applications) [2025] VSC 715 (Chang v Chang (Hannon J)). Her Honour dismissed Holly's appeals from judgments of Daly AsJ, including the costs orders made on 12 November 2024 that form the judgment debt relied on in the Bankruptcy Notice. In relation to the costs orders made on 12 November 2024, Hannon J found as follows:
   • These appeals were brought out of time, so Hannon J treated the materials as an application for an extension of time to seek leave to appeal and, if an extension be granted, an application for leave to appeal: Chang v Chang (Hannon J) at [31].
   • In assessing whether to grant an extension of time, Hannon J held that there was long and unexplained delay in bringing this application, and that there would be some prejudice to Victor in granting the extension: Chang v Chang (Hannon J) at [34]-[37].
   • As to the merits of the application, Hannon J held that there was no real prospect of Holly establishing that the 12 November 2024 costs orders were affected by error. In any event, appeals from orders as to costs are treated as exceptional and require an appeal court to exercise particular restraint: Chang v Chang (Hannon J) at [57]-[58].
   • Her Honour held that she would not have allowed the appeals from the 12 November 2024 orders even if she had granted an extension of time: Chang v Chang (Hannon J) at [60].

1. Process before Judicial Registrar not relevant on this review (cf grounds 1-6): It can be seen that grounds 1-6 of the application for review (summarised in [7] above) seek to challenge various aspects of the process before the Judicial Registrar. However, the Court's function in review proceedings of this kind is to consider afresh what order should be made in the application (here, whether to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice): see Chang v Chang (No 1) at [17]-[19]. That is, the Court exercises the relevant discretion on the basis of the evidence before it, unfettered by the decision of the Judicial Registrar. It follows that any arguments about errors committed by the Judicial Registrar are not relevant in this proceeding.
2. In saying that, I do not mean to suggest that the Judicial Registrar has committed any error. To the contrary, I consider that the Judicial Registrar's decision on 5 November 2025 followed directly from the findings that she made at the initial hearing on 22 August 2025 (where, after hearing argument, she stated that she declined to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice, but proposed to make orders granting an extension of time); and the reasons in Chang v Chang (No 1) at [39] (where I stated that I would not be minded to grant any further extensions of time in the event that the Supreme Court were unable to deliver its judgment on the appeals by the anticipated date of 27 October 2025).
3. In writing, Holly makes three broad arguments as to why the Bankruptcy Notice should be set aside.
4. Appeal has been dismissed in the Supreme Court (ground 8): First, Holly contends that the underlying debt is disputed on substantial grounds, because (at least at the time of the application) the costs orders were the subject of an appeal. That appeal has now been dismissed, and Hannon J found that there was no reasonable prospect of Holly establishing that the costs orders in question were affected by error: see [10] above. Her Honour's reasoning is, with respect, compelling.
5. Accordingly, even if Holly were to seek to appeal from the decision of Hannon J, I would assess the prospects of any further appeal succeeding as extremely low. This first argument does not provide a basis to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice.
6. Victor's undertaking is irrelevant, and has expired: Second, Holly's written submissions contend that Victor's undertaking in the Supreme Court prevents him from filing a creditor's petition and taking any other "bankruptcy enforcement steps", and that this undertaking operates until the date of the next directions hearing in the Supreme Court proceedings. Both of those arguments are contrary to the plain wording of Victor's undertaking (set out in [9] above).
   • The undertaking only related to the filing of a creditor's petition, and therefore did not touch on matters to do with the Bankruptcy Notice.
   • Crucially, the undertaking in its terms only operated until the next business day after Hannon J handed down the reserved judgments in proceedings S ECI 2021 01122 and S ECI 2022 04357. Her Honour handed down those judgments on 19 November 2025, so that undertaking has now expired. Holly argued in the hearing that Hannon J reserved on the question of costs (Chang v Chang (Hannon J) at [115]), and that she and Victor have not been provided with a sealed copy of the orders. Neither of these matters are relevant for present purposes: Victor gave the undertaking to avoid the need for Hannon J to determine whether to stay the relevant orders of Daly AsJ (see recital E of Hannon J's orders), and the appeal judgment has determined the correctness of those orders.
7. In any event, any undertaking to delay enforcement would not be a reason to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice; at most, it might be a reason to grant a further extension of time for compliance. But, as just noted, Victor's undertaking was much more confined, and does not have any continuing effect in this proceeding.
8. No evidence of abuse of process (ground 9): Holly's final argument is that the Bankruptcy Notice is an abuse of process. There is no evidence, beyond Holly's assertion, to support this allegation. It might be noted that, by the time that the Bankruptcy Notice was issued in May 2025, Daly AsJ had already granted default judgment in Victor's favour on 4 February 2025: Chang v Chang (No 1) at [6]. Holly referred to the fact that, by the time of the Bankruptcy Notice in May 2025, she had applied to have certain other orders of Daly AsJ set aside. But Holly did not apply to have the costs orders which underpin the Bankruptcy Notice set aside: see Chang v Chang (No 1) at [7]. And Holly did not seek to appeal against those costs orders until June 2025, after the Bankruptcy Notice had been issued: Chang v Chang (No 1) at [11].
9. Other arguments: At the hearing, Holly contended that the costs orders on which the Bankruptcy Notice is based were not final or certain or enforceable. That argument should be rejected: Daly AsJ stated in the orders that these amounts were payable "forthwith": see Chang v Chang (No 1) at [4]. The mere fact that Holly could (and later sought to) appeal against those orders does not render those costs orders unenforceable in any relevant sense. And now that appeal has been dismissed.
10. For completeness, I note that Holly sought to raise on the last occasion some other arguments; in particular, that the Bankruptcy Notice invalidly included post-judgment interest, and had invalidly been served by post and not personally. There is no substance to those arguments: see Chang v Chang (No 1) at [37]. At the hearing, Holly stated that she was not sure whether post-judgment interest had been calculated correctly in the Bankruptcy Notice. But that is no more than speculation, and does not provide a basis for setting aside the Bankruptcy Notice.
11. Further extension of time? At the hearing, Holly also submitted that I should grant a short extension of 12 days (as I understand it, the date on which Hannon J will determine costs). As discussed in Chang v Chang (No 1), there is no basis under the case law to order an extension of time in this case. Holly stated that her litigation against her brother is ongoing in the Supreme Court, and making her bankrupt will prevent her from continuing that litigation. However, any change in status will only occur if a sequestration order is made (which is the next stage in the scheme of the Bankruptcy Act 1966 (Cth)): see Chang v Chang (No 1) at [33].

1. For these reasons, Holly's application for review of the Judicial Registrar's orders dated 5 November 2025 should be dismissed. To be clear, that means that the Judicial Registrar's orders, in particular the order dismissing Holly's application to set aside the Bankruptcy Notice, remain in force.
2. Reimbursements: Victor seeks to be reimbursed for the costs of him obtaining a transcript of the hearings before the Judicial Registrar on 22 August 2025, 31 October 2025 and 5 November 2025. As a self-represented litigant, he is entitled to be reimbursed for reasonable expenses incurred: see Chang v Chang (No 1) at [40]. Although I have found that the process before the Judicial Registrar is not relevant in these review proceedings (see [11] above), that process was central to the Applicant's arguments and those expenses were reasonably incurred. I make that order.

I certify that the preceding twenty-three (23) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Hill.