There is a tension at the heart of lead qualification in this profession that most intake processes never name.
Qualifying a lead means finding out enough about someone's circumstances to know whether you can help them. Giving immigration assistance means, among other things, using knowledge of migration procedure to assist someone with their application or their prospects. Those two activities converge, and the better you qualify, the closer you get.
OMARA has drawn the line, and it runs straight through the middle of a typical intake funnel.
Where the line actually sits
Section 42 of the Code of Conduct prohibits giving immigration assistance to a client unless a compliant service agreement is in force. Section 43 excepts advice given at an initial consultation.
OMARA's third guidance document addresses answering questions by email or on social media without a charge or an agreement. Agents are free to answer questions online or over social media without an agreement in place where by answering them they are not giving immigration assistance — and OMARA considers that such questions would have to be generic in nature, and limited to questions that go to whether a person might consider applying for a visa.
That is a workable test. "What are the points thresholds for a 189?" is generic. "Based on your age and your degree, you would be on 70 points, so you should consider a 190" is not — it applies knowledge of migration procedure to a particular person's circumstances.
The guidance also describes what an initial consultation is, quoting the explanatory statement: an opportunity for an agent to find out the potential client's circumstances and advise what they could do for them, including steps and costs. A single consultation where the agent finds out the facts and either gives basic advice or outlines processes and costs.
So there are three zones, not two:
- Generic information, available to anyone, with no agreement and no consultation.
- The initial consultation, where you may assess circumstances and give advice, without an agreement but with the section 43 conditions attached.
- Everything after that, which requires a service agreement in force.
Qualification lives in the first zone. The moment it starts assessing a specific person's prospects, it has moved into the second — which is fine, provided you know that is what happened.
Questions that route without advising
The purpose of qualification is to decide where an enquiry goes, not to answer it. Questions that achieve that without assessing anything:
- What are you hoping to do? — in the client's own words, which is more informative than a dropdown.
- Where are you now, and what visa are you on? — factual, and determines urgency.
- Is there a date that matters? — a visa expiry, a job start date, a court date.
- Has anyone else acted for you on this? — relevant to conflicts and to whether a previous engagement has ended.
- Has an application been refused or a visa cancelled before? — factual, and changes which of your people should take it.
- Who else is involved? — sponsor, employer, family members, an agent overseas.
- How did you hear about us? — which is a conflict question as much as a marketing one.
Each collects a fact. None assesses prospects. The last two are worth emphasising because they feed obligations rather than the sales process.
The answers you must not give at this stage
Three provisions bound what can be said before anyone has assessed anything properly.
Section 26 prohibits false or misleading statements about your qualifications, about immigration opportunities or risks, or about migration procedure — and prohibits stating that you can procure a particular decision. It also requires reasonable steps to ensure nobody in your business, and no advertisement, makes such statements. An enthusiastic intake person saying "that's straightforward, we do these all the time" is making a statement about immigration opportunities.
Section 19 prohibits giving immigration assistance an agent reasonably believes would be futile, unless the client has been advised it is futile and has given a written statement that they still wish to proceed. An enquiry that is plainly hopeless should not be converted into an engagement on the basis that the client insists — not without that process.
Section 13 requires acting ethically, honestly and with integrity, and prohibits conduct reasonably likely to damage the reputation of the profession.
Our guide to getting clients through Google Ads covers the same constraints applied to advertising, where they bite hardest.
Conflicts belong at intake, not at engagement
Section 34 conditions the giving of immigration assistance on the conflict position being resolved — written notice of any interest that conflicts or could conflict, and the client's written statement that they still want you to act. Where there is an actual conflict of the kind section 34(4) describes, you must not act at all, even with consent.
Because the trigger is the conflict rather than your discovery of it, the check belongs as early as possible. Two intake questions do most of the work: who else is involved in this matter, and how did you hear about us. A referral arrangement that pays you is an interest to disclose, and section 34(5) puts a relative's interest — yours or the client's — expressly in scope.
What you owe before you help
Two things must happen before immigration assistance is given, and both are commonly left until the engagement paperwork.
The consumer guide. Section 38 prohibits giving immigration assistance unless a copy has been given to the client. OMARA's guidance says best practice is to provide it at the earliest reasonable opportunity — which, read alongside the initial-consultation exception, means before the consultation rather than with the agreement afterwards.
Identity. Section 36 prohibits giving immigration assistance unless you have taken all reasonable steps to verify the client's identity and are reasonably satisfied of it. Section 36(2) exempts advice given during an initial consultation, so identity verification is not required at the enquiry stage — but it is required before anything beyond it.
Disqualifying well
Not every enquiry should become a client, and declining is a skill worth building.
- Decline early rather than gradually. A matter you take reluctantly consumes more than one you decline.
- Say what you can and cannot do, without assessing what you have not properly considered.
- Refer where you can. Section 40's duty not to cause unnecessary expense or delay points the same way.
- Record it. An enquiry declined is worth a note, because the person may return, and because it evidences that you did not give advice.
Capacity is a legitimate reason to decline. As our guide to capacity planning sets out, taking work you cannot service to the Code's standard is already a compliance problem.
The intake test
- Does your intake form ask anything that requires assessment to answer?
- Could someone answering enquiries state what is generic information and what is not?
- Is how they heard about us captured, and does it reach the conflict check?
- Is the consumer guide given before the first consultation, or with the agreement?
- Does anyone say "you should qualify" before an agent has looked properly?
- Are declined enquiries recorded?
- Would an intake person recognise a matter that is futile and escalate it?
Where a system helps
Lead qualification usually lives in whatever the marketing side uses — a form, a spreadsheet, an inbox — disconnected from the practice systems where conflicts, matters and agreements live.
That disconnection is what allows the boundary to be crossed without anyone noticing. When an enquiry is an object in the same system as clients and matters, the conflict check can run at intake rather than at engagement, previous contact with the same person surfaces automatically, the consumer guide can be sent as part of the flow, and the point at which an enquiry becomes a consultation is a recorded event rather than a blur.
LodgeHQ treats enquiries as first-class records that convert into clients and matters, carrying the conflict and consent trail with them. Our guide to growing from solo to a team covers the point where intake stops being something the principal does personally; start a free trial to see the flow.
Verify before you rely on it
Whether a particular exchange constitutes immigration assistance turns on the facts, and OMARA's guidance is explicit that it is ultimately a matter for the agent to ensure they are not inadvertently providing it without an agreement in place. Read section 276 of the Migration Act, sections 42 and 43 of the Code, and the guidance directly.
This is general information for migration practices, not legal advice. If unregistered staff answer enquiries in your practice, have the boundary reviewed properly — the exposure sits with the agent, not with them.