30 November 2015 deadline for foreign residents to disclose residential real estate purchases

Posted by: Tony Allen

The Australian Treasury is actively investigating 532 cases of possible breaches of the Government’s foreign investment rules. Treasury has recently forced various foreign owners to sell a further seven illegally held residential properties located in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Since it took office in 2013, the government has forced foreign nationals to sell 19 properties.

The Treasurer has recently reminded foreign investors who have purchased residential properties without notifying the Foreign Investment Review Board that they have until 30 November 2015 to disclose those transactions without penalty. [Click here to read more]

If you are a foreign national and are uncertain as to your obligations in respect of your purchase of residential property then please call me to discuss.

Care needs to be taken when varying Trust Deeds

Posted by: Tony Allen

A recent case [MERCANTI -v- MERCANTI [2015] WASC 297], where one trust deed amendment was effective but another was found by the court not to be a valid amendment, demonstrates that good advice and drafting is needed to ensure valid and effective amendments to trust deeds.

In this case the person empowered by each of two different trust deeds to amend the trust deed purported to exercise those powers to change the person named as the ‘appointor’ in each of the trust deeds. The person removed from the ‘appointor’ position challenged his removal and the court found that the wording of the relevant clauses was critical.   In one case the court found that the power was sufficiently wide to authorise the change but not in the other. If your Trust deeds need amending, (and many do) then please call me to discuss.