Stamp Duty consequences of and/or nominee clause

[Hound Dog]

Hi All,
Was most interested in the article by Rob Balanda in the latest API magazine
page 69/70 and/or nominee article.Briefly an investor signed a contract in her own name and had the words and/or nominee added after her name as she was not sure in which structure to buy the house.(Time constraints and unable to contact her advisers on the day).She proceeded to buy the house in the name of a family trust .Just prior to settlement her solicitor advised her that an additional 100% stamp duty was payable because she had exercised the and/or nominee provision of the contract.
This occured in Qld (the low tax state) and looks like double dipping to me.By exercising a and/or nominee clause the Office of State Revenue deems it to be another sale of the property even though there is only one contract of sale.
Robs advice in the article is to seek advice well before you enter into a contract. Do the forum members have any other ideas on how to avoid this
sting assuming they still want to insert the and/or nominee clause .
Does this make the and/or nominee clause useless and expensive in Qld ... is there another clause that could be used to acheive the desired result without the double whammy stamp duty or do you need to know exactly
who is going to be the eventual purchaser before you start looking.
I will be interested in your thoughts and ideas.
Cheers
Houn Dog

 

[geoffw]

There's been a few threads with this topic in other states

In WA- http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19209
In NSW (briefly)- http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17983
In Vic- http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17799

Do a forum search on "nominee" to check for more posts

People had been using this, probably especially in Queensland, for "flipping" r/e sales- buying and selling quickly- it enabled the flipper to avoid stamp duty, and it may be that the law has changed because of this.

 

[Bricks & Mortar]

I know the rules are strict in this area, and as you said Geoff they've probably have recently changed the laws.

We purchased with an "and/or nominees" in Victoria. With the same property being sold last year, When selling we were told that the company name was misspelt in the Title (previous solicitors error/ours for not triple checking) and if the purchaser spotted it we would be up for stamp duty for corrections to the title. Fortunately it wasn't picked up. Phew!
Take care, real estate agents sometimes write the wrong folio numbers, We've picked it up twice!

DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING!

cheers Timm