Loan Tip: And/or Nominee on contracts and Loan Approvals

Some purchasers who enter into contracts to purchase property write their name and ‘and/or nominee’ after it. They often do this without legal advice and for some reason it appears to be popular in Victoria.

This is no big deal from a lending point of view, but the lender will need to know who the buyer of the property will be and often will only need some sort of confirmation prior to the full approval – they would not want to approve the loan in Homer’s name if Marge would become the nominated purchaser of the property for example.

Often the proof needed will be the draft transfer of land form.


I mention this as it can be an issue if you are rushing for a full approval prior to locking yourself into the contract.

We had one recently where the client writes his own name and/or nominee. It was approved at the last possible time, but the formal approval could only come out. The lender did not want to issue the approval until the confirmed the client was not nominating any other person or entity. We just scraped in with minutes to spare.


My advice would be not to use and/or nominee, at least without any legal advice. It is unnecessary and creates issues without any benefits.