Who can advise on what?

No it is not!

Being a lawyer I am biased of course.

Firstly how do you know at the beginning whether a matter will become complicated or not.

Secondly you may want related advice - difference between joint tenants or tenants in common etc. Covneyancer can explain the simple differences, but not the effects of bankruptcy or death. they also aren't trained in the laws of equity.

If all you want is a change of title, with no other advice, a good conveyancer should be fine.

 

terms of the agreement = lawyers.....Can this also be done by conveyancer legally speaking....
&
Not sure what u mean by....security = lawyers

 

I don't think Conveyancers can advise on terms in a loan agreement.

Security for the loan - mortgage over real property, charge over personal property etc.

 

As a newbie investor, What can a buyers agent offer? What does a buyers agent do and what services do they offer? Is there a degree of DD they carry out for a client or do they just suggest a property to fill a brief?
Sorry for the dumb questions.
We are considering our first IP somewhere north of Sydney, Hunter region or Newcastle.

 

Hi Peter

it would vary from buyers agent to buyers agent. Some BAs do a lot more than others. Best to let the buyers agents describe for themselves.

 

Hi Peter

Refer to REBAA factsheet here about buyers agents - hope you find it helpful:
Fact sheet - REBAA

 

Read As: @Terry_w charges $1500 . Jokes!....$1300

 

Yep, agree with all that Terry has said.

The problem is there's so much cross over between various disciplines.

As a broker I can't advise on stamp duty, but I'm expected to be able to calculate the loan amount required to settle a property with a reasonable degree of accuracy. To do this, I need to be able to calculate the stamp duty. Thankfully this is a fairly easy calculation, but I'd suggest if your legal person has a different figure from your broker for the amount of money you need to settle, go with the legal persons estimate.

The same goes for offset accounts. This is a financial product so it falls to the financial advisor to give advice on. Of course they'll have to charge fees to do this (fair enough because they have legal indemnity to cover for their advice). Despite this, it's the broker that sets it up and does all the work around it, we just can't legally give you any advice (even though we do all the time).

I was at a seminar earlier today with an interesting scenario that is currently in court. A borrower expressed an interest investing in shares and asked for a recommendation for a stock broker from his mortgage broker. The mortgage broker doesn't have any formal referral relationship with a stock broker, but after being pressed, gave the borrower the name of his own stock broker. A fairly reasonable thing to do.

Turns out the stock broker was dodgy and the borrower lost $900k. The borrower is now suing the mortgage broker for making the recommendation. Apparently the mortgage broker's professional indemnity insurance doesn't cover him because he gave advice in a professional capacity on something that he wasn't licensed to do.

Hopefully the mortgage broker will win the case, but it'll still cost a large sum of money to do so.

BTW, anecdotally I think lawyers are probably the worst offenders of giving advice in a professional capacity that they're not legally qualified to give.

 

Pete - that is terrible news about the broker getting sued. Shows the risks of doing business.

 

It was used as an example of the standard PI insurance isn't enough, it needs to be extended beyond what your core business is.

 

Employees of registered tax agents as well. This is why most people are getting their tax done by Accountants, when you see a CA or CPA for example and they are working for a tax firm and the firm is registered.

 

And many are not even accountants or tax agents, but the firm is licenced. Similar with conveyancing with conveyancers and lawyers - most of the work done by non qualified at some firms.

 

This list makes accountants sound pretty useless, specially considering there's a fair bit of study involved.

So I wonder why people say that as part of your investing team you should have a good accountant?

 

Terry is legit.

 

Accountants aren't useless. they can advise on all sorts of things relevant to property investors such as cash flow, record keeping, running a business, analysis.

If the accountant is a tax agent they can advise on commonwealth tax aspects too.

I think when most people talk about accountants they are referring to tax accountants who are registered tax agents.

 

So I've been doing some reading and have found the following information to confirm your post above.

 

I don't think your last 2 paragraphs are correct. There are different strands in the ca and CPA program so a person could be either without doing tax.

Furthermore there is an experience requirement. A tax practitioner that is an accountant would need 2 years work experience undertaking tax return work to get licenced. Being a CPA or CA in itself is not enough.

 

Yes, a CPA or CA would actually need 8 years of 'relevant experience' as per the TPB website.
Also agree that it is possible to complete the CPA and not qualify to be a tax practitioner. These are the options:

 

Actually I'm not sure of the amount of experience required. If you're a member of a professional body, it says 8 years experience

But if you select '201 - Tertiary qualifications in accountancy', it says 12 months experience

 

It looks like someone with a degree in accountancy or a member of a professional association or law would need 1 year's relevant experience to become a registered tax agent. But there are also subject hurdles too.

Not sure why you are posting these Andypandy

My point is that accountants cannot give tax advice unless they are a lawyer or tax agent. Not all accountants are tax agents and the ones that are not cannot give tax advice.