That heading may sound like obvious advice, but buyers often don’t realise that if they exchange contracts under their personal names and then want to have the property in a company name, it will cost a substantial amount of money to change it. Double the stamp duty in fact!

For personal names, check that the correct name, including any middle name, is on the contract. If you are thinking of purchasing in a company name, make sure that this company exists and is incorporated at the time of purchase, so that you don’t have to pay extra stamp duty later.

In addition, if you are thinking of purchasing a property in your Self Managed Super Fund, you would generally have a Trustee for the Super Fund. Should this Trustee be a Company, it is imperative to have created and incorporated a Company prior to the purchase of the property.

Before signing a contract, always make sure the entity exists.

For further information and advice, please call us at Conveyancing Solutions.

Acknowledgements: Allison Benson, Kerin Benson Lawyers and GK Strata Management with respect to blog posts