"and or nominee..."

Quick question, when signing an offer contract, I've signed before using "Steve and/or nominee" in case I wanted to change structures and put it into a trust. This however has always been for myself.

I am currently looking for someone else - am I able to sign a contract "Steve and/or nominee..." then completely change the name on the contract once it's been accepted ie. now being signed by 'John Smith'?

Get a power of attorney?
Alex

Dunno. It's not for anyone incompetent. My future MIL wants to buy an IP, but rather than schlep her all across Adelaide to sign offer contracts that may be rejected (especially with the market at the moment), just wanted to know if I can do it on her behalf.

Hubby and I have power of attorney for each other as he is away for work alot. You can get a power of attorney and limit it so certain items. In basic terms - The first one we had was that I could do transaction for him on anything so long as it was to benefit him. Now we have one that as I put it to him - I can go to US and spend everything on shoes and there is nothing he could do about it. But it is the only one that allows you are far as I am aware to buy and sell real estate either to benefit you or them. I am sure you could get one that relates solely to real estate - but I am not a legal eagle so best you talk to one. Pretty easy to set up and should only cost under a couple of hundred. Makes life easy. Hope this helps,

Power of attorney isn't for the incompetent. It's just you acting as agent. Otherwise, just set up a fax machine and fax it to her.
Alex

Yeah may have to do that. Thanks for the help guys.

steveadl said:

am I able to sign a contract "and/or nominee..." then completely change the name on the contract once it's been accepted

Click to expand...

Dunno about SA laws Steve, but the laws governing this very thing just changed in WA, so they'll probably be chatting with, or may have evene copied their SA brethren.

They still allow you to do it, but the purchaser/s listed on the transfer of Land doc. submitted to Landgate (our WA titles office) must be in exactly the same form as the contract states, else double stamp duty on the title is payable. So,....possible still, but can get mighty expensive. The only exception to this is if the party on the contract has a written and verifiable legal doc written up and executed prior to the offer being accepted.

Just out of interest, we got severely shafted as a Vendor about 5 years ago now by accepting this form of 'and/or nominee' on the offer document. I don't think we'll sell again, but if we ever did, and we saw that on the offer document...it'd go straight into the bin without even looking at the rest of the offer.

Hopefully you don't come up against someone like us when going around popping offers in like that for your MIL, cos they won't get very far.

Thanks Daz. You've just convinced me, I'll forget the whole "and or" thing.

I just wasn't sure if it was an easy process of just switching the names and signing another contract, or if there was a whole mess of paperwork etc. Since it's the latter, I'll just do it the normal way.

Steve,
Bought a property last month. I couldn't sign the contract as I was interstate. I had my significant other place her name on the contract and/or nominee.
The conveyancer has drawn up a document and the title will now be in both our names.
The catch is that you have to pay stamp duty on any deposit amount. In our case we put down 10k so the stamp duty is 1% on half the amount.
If it was transferred to a trust for example it would be 1% of the 10k.

There seems to some misunderstanding of Powers of Attorney. Someone must be competent to grant an Enduring Power of Attorney and, being competent, can withdraw such power as easily as it is given. It is a simple procedure and may suit your purpose.

I believe also, that such powers can be limited in both time and scope so that it covers just the purpose you talk about.