Three things to know about an unconditional contract

Shortfall Account v Trust Account

You must find out and decide whether you will need to use a shortfall account or a solicitor trust account to deposit any shortfall of funds between the money your bank will provide to you and the money you need to settle your property purchase.

Shortfall Account

This is an account provided by a bank or your financial institution for you to deposit any shortfall.

You should make an inquiry with your Mortgage broker or bank if they will be providing you with a Shortfall account for you to deposit any shortfall of funds between the amount you will receive as your loan and amount needed to settle your property. 

Trust Account  

This is a bank account that allows us as your Solicitors to hold your money on trust for you.  

If your Mortgage broker and/or bank advice you that you will not be receiving a Shortfall account facility, you should write to us immediately as you will need to use our Solicitor Trust fund account to deposit the shortfall of funds for us to settle your property.  

What is stamp duty?

Stamp Duty is a tax levied by all state and territory governments on property purchases. On purchases of Residential real estate, you are required to pay Stamp Duty, unless exempt.

If you are a foreign natural person (that is you are not an Australian citizen or Permanent Resident), you will need to pay a Foreign Purchaser Additional duty (FPAD) as well as the regular Stamp Duty without exemption.

How is it Calculated?

The amount of stamp duty that you are required to pay depends on:

• The price of the property you are purchasing

• The state that your property is in/the location of the property

• Your intended use of the property

Exemptions and Concessions

There are exemptions from or reductions of the stamp duty if:

• You are a first home buyer

• You are going to live in this property (principal place of residence)

• The land transfer is from deceased persons to their beneficiaries

• The transfers are between spouses and partners, including transfers from parties to a divorce settlement

You may also receive other concessions such as:

• Off-the-plan purchase (buying a property before the building work has finished) concession provided that this is going to be your principal place of residence.

• Pensioner duty exemptions or concessions.

As your conveyancer, we will fill out the DOL form for you.

You will then receive an email with a link to the form.

You must:

• Click on the link.

• Provide your birthdate in order to open the form.

• Click through and thoroughly check all the details in the form to ensure that they are correct.

  • This includes your personal details, details of the property you are purchasing and details of your eligibility for stamp duty exemptions that we applied for, etc.

Once you are satisfied that all the details are correct, you must sign the form. In most cases, you will sign as the transferee.

If due to an exceptional circumstance, you are signing on behalf of an individual or company, then you must sign as the Power of Attorney.

However, in all other cases, you must ensure that you sign the form as the transferee.