By Nicholas Cowie and Ganeshmoorthy Chandrasekaran From 1 July 2023, new rules came into operation for foreign persons (including foreign owned Australian companies) who acquire Australian assets. Are you ready? In this post, we answer some of the questions you might have in ensuring your landowning business complies with the new rules from 1 July … Read more

Queensland’s property law regime is about to change and be ‘modernised’ with the introduction of the Property Law Bill 2023 (the Bill). When passed, the Bill will replace the nearly 50 year old Property Law Act 1974 (Qld) (the PLA). Read more

By Mark Peters. New stamp duty will be imposed on a change in beneficial ownership or a trust acknowledgement, plus a welcome change to refund foreign purchaser duty for non-residential land. Read more

The Victorian Government has continued with its intention to introduce a new windfall gains tax (WGT) in respect of gains made by landowners arising from increases in land value following rezoning of land. Following consultation with stakeholders, further details about the value mechanism and rezoning and transaction exemptions have been announced. Read more

On 3 August 2021, the Victorian Government introduced into Parliament the Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme Bill 2021 (Vic). The Bill reintroduces the Commercial Tenancy Relief Scheme (Scheme), which had previously expired on 28 March 2021. Read more

The Victorian Government has announced as part of the Victorian budget for 2020/21, the Big Housing Build, the largest ever investment in public and community housing in Victoria. The Big Housing Build will involve a $5.3b investment in social housing, creating: 9,300 new social housing dwellings; and 2,900 new affordable and market homes for first … Read more

The State Governments of New South Wales and Victoria have recently announced shake-ups to their respective stamp duty regimes as part of their 2020-21 State Budgets, with NSW in particular proposing significant changes to property transfer taxes. Read more

On 29 March 2020 monetary thresholds for acquisitions of leases of land of more than 5 years (including options to renew) by foreign persons were reduced to zero.  This meant that a large volume of leasing transactions which previously did not require approval fell into the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) net.  On 3 September 2020, the FIRB amended these temporary measures to allow renewals and material variations of leases to proceed without approval in some circumstances. The new measures took effect on 4 September 2020. Read more