Stamp duty when taking over a contract that has fallen through as nominee

I posted this in one of the other sections but then thought it might have more success here??

We are coming up to settlement on our first investment property in Ballarat on 12th October, finance has finally been approved, however we have hit a little glitch. The property is and NRAS property that had begun construction when the original purchaser had to pull out due to job loss. We were told when we signed the contract of sale that stamp duty would be payable on where the house was at then (estimated land value of $100k and added value of $50k, as house had just hit lock up stage). This worked out to around $4k but he said to budget up to $6 to be sure. It was then decided after signing this contract that we should sign a nomination form to just take over the contract from the original purchaser who things had fallen through for. I don't think there was too much time between signing the contract of sale and signing the nomination form. We were under the impression that by signing this we would get the stamp duty at the rate the original purchaser had locked in??? However, when we received our loan documents from FirstMac yesterday they had stamp duty down as $14070!!!!!!

I have contacted the solicitor who is away til 8th October and so have had to leave it with his colleague. She got back to me this morning saying that she had to find out if stamp duty would be from when we entered original contract of sale or from value of property when we signed nomination form. There really shouldn't be that much difference as i said, there was only a short period of time between signing the two.

I never heard back from her by end of business today though and don't want to stress all weekend about it, so thought i'd put it up here and see if anyone was able to help. Have the banks just assumed stamp duty on whole amount (i thought an official document you are signing would have to have exact figures on it!!???), or are we in trouble having to find an extra $8-10k????

Thanks in advance for any help!!
 
I would think that since you had not entered into an agreement with the seller before he entered into the contract then both of you would be up for stamp duty. You would be paying on the full dutiable value which would be the purchase price.
 
Would it not be calculated from the value the house was at when we signed the contract or the nomination form?? (it was being built and is only just finishing up now).
 
I would say it would be contract price. Why not ring up the OSR on tuesday and run your scenario over the phone and see if they can she light on it.
 
Yeah think I might thanks terry. I am 35 weeks pregnant and didn't really want to stress about it all weekend if I could find some answers online tonight lol. I should have thought to call them today but I expected to hear back from solicitor by end of day!!
 
I am pretty sure this would be a double stamp duty transaction. The whole point of the 'nominee' clause is to permit people to buy in one name on auction/sale day, with the intention or contemplation of changing that name to something else with no change in beneficial ownership. This is why nominee clauses work when people nominate their own personal companies/trust/family members etc. Nominating a third party who the original purchaser had no relationship with at the time of sale (nor whom he has a continuing relationship with after the sale) would be extremely hard to argue is an exemption under section 35 of the Duties Act.
 
Oh crap!! Would we be up for full stamp duty though or stamp duty on value of construction at time of signing??

I don't think the original contract included nominee, it was just that the sale fell through and it went back on the market and it was suggested by solicitors that rather than doing a new contract we could sign a nomination form. Would we have been better doing a standard contract!?!?
 
Back
Top