Subdivisions

Hi,

I am 1 of 4 unit owners wanting to sub divide the land. All front and backyards are common property although the are all physically divided ( fencing). As we already jointly own the land will we still have to pay stamp duty/cgt?
Thanks
Donns

 

I assume you are part of a strata with the other three owners. Is your aim to just convert the common property to ownership by the individual owners or to undo the strata and convert each unit to separate torrens titles?

 

Hi Mark, we were hoping to get the land on title so that we can renovate ect I didn’t realise there was another way around it. I’ve spoken to many surveyors and have not been given another option the other than got this way which unfortunately includes a huge open space contribution to council. Thanks for your reply

 

It will depend on how the OSR (Office of state revenue) views the transaction and the various entity names it will be in and going into once divided.

A property lawyer will be able to assist @thatbum may have some helpful info?

 

Thanks Colin I’ll check him out

 

@Colin Rice that's a generous characterisation - I'm not much of a property lawyer generally and even less so in terms of tax law.

But my basic understanding is that depending on what you're doing, CGT will probably apply in some form, and stamp duty will apply because you'll be changing the ownership makeup.

I'm assuming you're 4 strata lot owners wanting to "subdivide" into some form of individual ownership.

You'll probably need proper tax advice - but firstly, how do you even know you can do what you're proposing in a planning sense?

 

Yes that’s correct but we also self manage our body corporate so we can’t pay ourselves for the land we obviously all own a quarter so why would we need to pay another stamp duty on top of the original?
I’ve had 3 quotes from surveyors and they all offer a different piece of advice, just trying to figure it out before paying money to apply to council and then get hit with an amount greater than the land value

 

And yes they’re all street frontage and already physically divided just dodged the public open space contribution of $40000 as they been residential before 1986 it apparently grants us an exemption

 

Wouldn't it be far cheaper to just have a renovation bylaw passed at an AGM ?

 

Really would that allow extensions that stretch across common property?

 

More than likely their will be CG if you are chopping of some land to sell.
If you get a DA and sell the lot, probably not.

You don't have much of a choice unless for some reason council changes planning strategy, somone else does a DA that has enough couincil space to meet their requirements (very unlikely).

You either meet council requirements or no deal.
Welcome to world of dealing with councils.
Occasionaly they even try to get you to maintain it

 

Extensions are a bit different to renovations......
Have not heard of it being done, but,
Someone more educated than myself might know IF you could get more than one bylaw passed, being assignment of "exclusive use" bylaw (of each fenced area), as well as a renovation bylaw that could include a clause for building extension.
All this is usually drafted/prepared by a property lawyer.

As others have said above, whoever did the development used a loop hole to avoid some major costs to profit, should you want to individually title these costs may be unavoidable

 

My bad, I thought that is what you did, cheers.

 

Speak to a town planner like @Tufan Chakir who could confirm whether your planning scheme allows it.

 

No to wouldn't

 

It's an easy process, and not particularly unusual.Financials I don't know too much about other than you already own a share of the common land - the outcome will just (effectively) define it better. Don't take my word but I would have thought no open space contribution as you are simply aligning boundaries, not creating new lots/properties. In this case I'd make a quick call to Council - subdivisions, and if necessary follow up with advice from a property lawyer. Try not to overthink it - it's not too difficult to achieve what you want (it's actually a case of adjusting lines on paper rather than anything else)