The Property and Finance Show
Welcome to the First Brick Property Podcast, Australia's newest property podcast show! The First Brick Property Podcast brings a casual conversation style show to your ears! Education is the key, with episodes ranging a wide variety of topics as well as constant guest hosts, to give you the edge when it comes to buying property! Delivering property beginners and experts insights to help you get into the market or grow your portfolio. The Key - Education to create wealth through Property.The show is hosted by the Director of First Brick Property Buyers Agency (www.firstbrick.com.au) Kyrillos Mansour (AKA KM) who is hugely passionate about property and education.
The Property and Finance Show
Legal Essentials for Property Investors with Saimon Sami from Trinity Legal
Saimon Sami from Trinity Legal and Migration shares essential legal insights for property buyers, emphasizing that solicitors act as "personal bodyguards" through the property purchase journey.
• Solicitors provide comprehensive legal protection compared to conveyancers, who focus only on transfers
• Contract review is crucial for identifying risks like easements, covenants, and special conditions that could impact your purchase
• Every state has different legal requirements - cooling-off periods range from none in WA to five days in NSW
• Settlement processes have modernized from chaotic in-person check exchanges to streamlined 45-minute digital transfers on PEXA
• Building and pest clauses, finance conditions, and settlement dates are three critical contract elements buyers should carefully review
• Stamp duty and land tax regulations vary significantly between states, with Victoria currently having the highest rates
• Working with a coordinated team of professionals (solicitor, buyer's agent, mortgage broker) creates a smoother purchasing experience
We've turned on Fan Mail! Send us your questions, feedback, or comments through the link in our show notes - we'd love to hear from you and possibly address your questions in future episodes.
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Edit - Land Tax Threshold in Victoria
As of the 2024–2025 financial year, the land tax threshold in Victoria (VIC) is:
✅ Land Tax Threshold (VIC – 2024–25):
Type Threshold General landowners | $50,000
Trusts (special trust rates) | $25,000
You can reach out to Saimon at
Saimon@trinitylegalmigration.com.au
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Hello and welcome back to the Property and Finance Show. My name is KM, I'll be your host, as always, and just a quick announcement before we get into today's episode. Something very exciting We've turned on fan mail, and so what fan mail means is that you can send us text messages directly to the episode and we can get your questions and we can get your fan feedback and whatnot. So link in bio in the show notes. If you have any questions and whatnot for future episodes, or if you want to talk to our guests and get them back on, you can let us know. If you want to tell our guests that they're very bad or the host is very bad, you can also let them know. So that will be turned on or it's already on. So this is very exciting news.
Kyrillos Mansour:The next two weeks we're going to be doing a brief overview of a very, very important topic. It's a legal essentials in property buying, and so we've got two guests lined up, today and next week, and so it's a two-part mini series. We'll find a good name for it. As our guest speaks, I'll find something that pops to my mind. But yeah, so it's a legal essentials in property buying and everything you need to know about it. It's very important. You can't get away from it. You have to have this part in your knowledge and have a team around it to make sure everything goes smoothly. And we're going to find out all about it right now.
Kyrillos Mansour:And our guest today? His name is Simon Sammy. He's from Trinity Legal and Migration. Simon and Trinity Legal actually do all of our work for all of our clients and make sure all of our clients have very smooth settlement process, have excellent legal correspondence and ensure everything goes to plan. And a lot of things can not go to plan, as we'll find out later in this episode. We have simon. He's a solicitor, um, he's very experienced. He's been working with us for many, many years, alongside of us, like I mentioned, um, and he's also purchased properties for our clients in adelaide, brisbane, melbourne, sydney, hobart, perv. I don't know about darwin, but everywhere, pretty much everywhere in the country. So he knows the law back to front in every single state. Um, we do a lot of work together. He's also my personal friend. Apparently it's going to europe without me, but, um, yeah, simon, welcome to the podcast.
Saimon Sami:Thank you, colos um, yes, so I thank you for having us, thank you having me on the podcast today and to discuss all these problems that could arise from property purchasing and people that don't notice what to look for in the contracts and things like that. Essentially, yes, I have done like most of the states. You missed Queensland, but I'll let go of it. My bad, yes, and I am going to Europe, unfortunately without him, but that's not my fault.
Kyrillos Mansour:Yeah, sorry. So this is make a lot of money, as you'll find out in this episode, so we can't all travel together at the same time, but anyway, I hope you're feeling better. Today is the day after Barcelona's apparently shock exit from the Champions League. But I mean, I've been saying Inter Milan is going to win the Champions League for years, for the whole year. Sorry, so, not that shocked, but I feel you are better today because Arsenal lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Saimon Sami:It's just like I guess it's silver lining. Yeah, it's true, I'll take it.
Kyrillos Mansour:Anyway, no one listening to this cares about what I'm talking about right now. So, let's dive into the property and finance world. So first question, simon what is the role of a solicitor in a property purchase? Do you need one? Why do you have to have one? What is their role and what do they do?
Saimon Sami:Okay. So essentially I think it's the best to look at it as a solicitor is like your personal bodyguard in the legal process, right? So essentially we like, as a solicitor, your legal guide protect you through the entire property purchase and journey. You know we handle every single aspect, from reviewing the contract, conducting due diligence, providing legal advice, negotiating contract amendments, preparing and lodging. You know the legal documents for the transfer, going up into the settlement day and managing settlement and looking at the like numbers between you. Know your finance and what you need for the on settlement day representing your interests. So essentially, there's a number of things that will we touch on that essentially make us um, let's put it in a way that it protects the buyer. It protects the buyer from any outside noise or anything like that yeah, I.
Kyrillos Mansour:I wrote down the the line you said there. I don't know how long you've been thinking about that sentence and how long you've been trying to say it, but your personal bodyguard in the property purchase is very nice, yeah, very nice yeah I came up with myself. If you can look at the camera and say personal problem, I'm joking, um, we're going to snip that up and put it everywhere. That's amazing. So so yeah, actually that's an excellent description.
Kyrillos Mansour:The solicitor's role is to be the personal bodyguard in the property purchase for the person purchasing the property and or selling the property. In this conversation we'll be talking about buying, so you are the bodyguard from a legal perspective for the purchaser in terms of property purchase, and so that means you're looking at the contract, the title searches, you're making sure everything stacks up, there's nothing funky, there's no secrets that we don't know about, because real estate agent's job is to sell a property. That's it. They're not fussed about the legal side of things. They don't care about easements, covenants or this or that, whatever. They just want to sell a property.
Kyrillos Mansour:It's always buyer beware. The buyer has to be aware of everything that's going on and it's their responsibility to do the checks. And if they don't do the checks and something goes wrong, it's not the seller's fault. Actually, that's why you have a solicitor that goes through everything for you. So quick question Lots of people ask me do we have to use a solicitor? I say, well, yeah, someone needs to do it for you. They say, yeah, but can we use a conveyancer? So can you tell us what's the difference between a conveyancer and a solicitor? Okay, so with?
Saimon Sami:property purchase. The difference between, essentially, a solicitor and a conveyancer is solicitors are qualified lawyers where conveyances aren't lawyers. Essentially, solicitors and lawyers can handle complex issues, often broader legal issues, where other conveyances focus solely on the transfer. So from a conveyancer side of things, I can't speak for every conveyancer. But you may not get a letter of advice. You may not get advice on any encumbrance on the property or any zoning laws. Things that are very important are like zoning restrictions, potential council issues, especially if you're trying to maybe knock down and build or build a granny flat or things like that. Conveyances may not be aware of all the legal ramifications that come from it okay so why is having a good solicitor important?
Kyrillos Mansour:in a nutshell? I know you've mentioned a bunch of stuff yeah, why is it? Important to have a good solicitor as well, and not just any solicitor well, essentially you're wanting you.
Saimon Sami:What you want to know from your client is what they're buying the property for the investment purposes?
Saimon Sami:is it, you know, to again to build? You know to knock down and rebuild? Is it for just to live in? It depends on what their goals are, and we have to align ourselves with what their goals are. If someone's trying to buy something to live in and they don't want to build a granny flat and the zoning laws don't allow for granny flats, then so be it, it's not a big problem. But if someone is trying to buy something where you can't build on this land for any purpose heritage listed, it's not big, big enough whatever it is then, and no one picks that up prior to buying then this person is now stuck with such a huge asset, which is so expensive, that they can't actually now do anything with what they what, what they intended to do yeah, and I think I think it's pretty basic, right, if you're spending half a million, well, actually, I think it's pretty basic, right, if you're spending half a million, well, actually, if you're spending $800,000, $1 million, $1.5 million, $2 million, $2.5 million even is quite normal these days in Sydney.
Kyrillos Mansour:You want to make sure you know exactly what the hell you're buying and as a common person, you're not going to know. I'm not going to know, but a solicitor who is trained to understand this is going to be able to figure it out. And, um, I guess a conveyancer might be able to as well, but, as I haven't discussed the difference is not a qualified lawyer, and so, uh, they're going to be able to really, really help you. Now let's talk about the purchasing process from a legal perspective, so from a buyer's agent perspective. You know, we do a lot of data analysis. We find the property, we find the locations we want to buy in for that person, we find the properties, we negotiate, we try and get the best deal on the market value. We make a lot of money for the client.
Kyrillos Mansour:Cool From your perspective. You come in at the end. So we found the property, we've decided this is the one we want to purchase. We believe we can purchase the property under market value. Our client's going to make instant equity. It's in a location with very, very high growth, great yields, etc. And then we negotiate and we get a deal with the agent. And so we agree on a deal, and then we get sent a contract or the buyer gets sent a contract. At this point, typically, you will step in what is the standard purchasing process from a legal point of view.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, the process is lengthy, it's not just a short process. So essentially, essentially it start with, like you said, the engagement where essentially you decide to purchase that property and engage with your solicitor, slash, conveyancer and essentially you would then essentially give them the contract to review. In cases where you work with buyer's agent we'll touch on that a bit later but essentially you would send us the contract, or whoever the agent will send the contract to us, based on the client giving them the details of the solicitor, then we will essentially review that contract. By reviewing it, we will go through all the clauses, special conditions. We will then look at due diligence, which is like searches and inquiries, such things like we said before, like zoning, encumbrances, your rates, things like that. We then will provide advice based on both the special conditions, the contract and the due diligence. Searches we've just done would negotiate any especially special conditions that are not in favor of the purchaser or things like, you know, the deposit or things like the settlement period. There are a few things that you know buyers want eight-week settlement, people want five percent deposit. These are the things that you have to negotiate prior to signing these contracts. Then we will essentially exchange the contract, will then exchange based on those terms and based on the agreement between the two solicitors or two conveyances.
Saimon Sami:New South Wales typically has a five-day cooling-off period where people sometimes ask for 10, very rare to get but essentially you may be able to get it.
Saimon Sami:But standard is five days unless you're buying under auction conditions and then essentially we would at that point. Once cooling off period ends, we look into the pre-settlement phase where essentially we look at numbers, we discuss things with the banks to see you know there's a shortfall account set up? If there is, you know what's the amount that's needed for shortfall stamp duty any transfer costs, things like that and then we take it to the final stage, which is the actual settlement, where the funds are transferred and the legal ownership of the property passes to the purchaser and we ensure all documents are correctly lodged with land registry and then essentially on the day we use a platform called PEXA which is the online platform for settling, and then once that's done, it's done. Once we move on to post-settlement, we then notify you once settlement is complete and we handle any final administrative tasks. Essentially we'll send you all the documents that we've collated from the very beginning.
Kyrillos Mansour:That's a very extensive process and there's a lot of work involved. Just to go to show you actually quite clearly why you need to have a solicitor on your team, because I was getting confused when you were talking about it. There's so many things going on, but I want to break that down. So, first step, because there was a lot of things in there and let's let's break it down so people can really understand. So firstly, when should someone engage a solicitor?
Saimon Sami:yeah, so the earliest possible opportunity um.
Kyrillos Mansour:So before they purchase a property, um like before they start looking when they find a property, when is the ideal time?
Saimon Sami:I think essentially they should let the solicitor know that they're starting to look, which is a good heads up, and then, once they do find something and they're interested in it, they would then send those contracts to the solicitor to review. Things like that. There are times where your solic sisters are engaged. Later on, however, you know you find that there's a cooling off period. In that meantime, the the pro of that is essentially yep, you've already signed the contracts, you've got your five days. We can still negotiate and advise in that. In that cooling off period, however, things like new south wales you would lose that 0.25 percent or something like that.
Kyrillos Mansour:Yes, it is minuscule, but money is money yeah, I think it's very important to know the um that every state is different and you need to really really understand that, that state's characteristics and personality, before you make decisions. Um, and so this is why we always talk about on this podcast having a team right, having your broker, your broker, your accountant, your buyer's agent, your solicitors, your building and pest guys, everything. And so, because you know, obviously you just mentioned, in New South Wales you can sign a contract, you do have a cooling off period, but you also pay a 0.25% non-refundable deposit as soon as you sign a contract in New South Wales. And so if you terminate, even in your cooling off period, which you're entitled to do, you are going to lose that 0.25% and whilst it might sound minuscule, actually as the property prices in New South Wales or in Sydney keep going up and up and up, you're talking about sometimes $5,000, $6,000. So it's not actually small, small money.
Kyrillos Mansour:In the grand scheme of things it and in the grand scheme of things it might be by still $5,000 that you lost for absolutely no reason. But also every state has its own characteristics, like in New South Wales, contracts are actually prepared typically before you sign a contract. So if you go to view the property, they often will give you the contract and then you can pass that to your solicitor whilst you're still deciding if you want to purchase a property or not. So in that scenario you can engage a solicitor quite early and so they can review the contract before you sign anything, because it's available. In Adelaide, for example, contracts don't exist. Unless you have a deal, they don't prepare a contract. And also a contract in New South Wales is different to a contract in South Australia.
Kyrillos Mansour:A contract in New South Wales has everything. It's a title search, it's got the you know, the purchasing details, the salad details, everything, everything's all there. In south australia the contract is a very standard template and that the real estate institute in south australia is created and it's literally who's selling, who's buying, uh, if there's a tenant having any special finance course, what has a lot of the information is the title search, which is often in South Australia. Actually, it's a different form. Yeah, form 1. It's a Form 1. So it's very important to know every state is different, and you cannot go into each state thinking the exact same rules apply, because they don't.
Kyrillos Mansour:In South Australia, there's no deposit paid on signing a contract, but in New South Wales you have five to ten days cooling off. In south australia you only have two days. In wa, for example, there is no cooling off, but we'll get into all of that. So it's very important, though, to know when to engage your solicitor and and, like siren said, as early as possible during the process. You mentioned a contract review phase. Yeah, when you're actually looking at this document. Yeah that everyone is scared to sign and there's always issues back and forth. What are you actually doing during a contract review?
Saimon Sami:phase. Okay. So essentially what we do here is again I think this is probably the most important part of the whole process, like we discussed before um, essentially you're identifying the pies of the property. So you're looking at the buyer and the seller. You're essentially looking at checking the inclusions and exclusions. You find that a lot of the time, um, people have been told yep, there's going to be this barbecue included or this outdoor, you know table, whatever it is, but they're not in the inclusion list. If these things are missed and you do sign the contract and you do go ahead on settlement, when you come to see, hey, where is this table? And it wasn't in the inclusion list, it's too bad if it's not. You know it's not in a contract, not in writing, it never happened. Um, so we have to verify what's included in the sale.
Saimon Sami:Um, then you review the special conditions again. New south wales is a much, much bigger contract than any other state where we'll have a lot of special conditions. Um, and the special conditions essentially will discuss things like any encumbrances on the land. If you're buying, you're buying the, the property as is, and you know you have to do your inspections and it's basing everything on. The buyer puts a lot of responsibility on the buyer rather than the seller, um and then essentially we check the settlement date. We identify any potential risks, ambiguities in these con in the contract and then consider, consider any special special circumstances. If the buyer has them, if maybe they're essentially buying from you know if they're using trust money, if they're using a normal loan, if they need a longer settlement period, they need a shorter settlement period, things like that okay, that's cool.
Kyrillos Mansour:So what would you say? Some of the more common issues that get picked up when you're reviewing the contract?
Saimon Sami:yeah, um, I, most common issues are essentially special conditions, essentially special conditions.
Saimon Sami:Your special conditions are the most essentially your biggest issues in any contract. Um, they place undue risk and obligations on the buyer where, um, I think you know again, an example of it would be yeah, you're buying the property as is, so, essentially, you're this is how it is and this is how you're going to buy it. You know if you like you, like you don't, you don't. So, essentially, if're this is how it is and this is how you're going to buy it, you know if you like you, like you don't, you don't. So, essentially, if you haven't done any of your due diligence, where you've done building and pest inspections and things like that you might be, you might get into a problem where this property that you're buying has structural issues, termite issues, it's on heritage land, example, it's on you know any of these, any of these major things that you don't, if you don't do a building pest inspection on, then essentially you will not be able to do anything on this land yeah, that makes sense.
Kyrillos Mansour:Now I have a question about um settlement day yeah um, it was part of the process. Um that you're talking about what actually happens on ceremony. I know you talk about pecs and but what is actually happening on settlement day and how does the property go from seller to buyer?
Saimon Sami:yeah, so on settlement day, at that point everything's already ready. So, essentially, like we discussed the process, the process all leads up into settlement day. So, upon when we get to the settlement day itself, essentially everything should be ready. And what pexa does is what like what your question is. What happens is the transfer of ownership goes from the seller to the buyer, so the transfer or the transfer happens on that day. So, yes, your contract was signed 35, 42, 65 days ago, but the property is not yours until settlement day, until that transfer is lodged with the land registry of that specific state so why does it take um so?
Kyrillos Mansour:most settlement days are 40 days or whatever yeah, is that is?
Saimon Sami:that time literally there to allow for time for for this process to occur no um, that time is there mostly for essentially people to do their, you know, building and pest people to look at people to do their finance. Most properties are bought by finance rather than cash. However, if you are doing a cash purchase, no, you can have a settlement day up to 14. You can have a 14 day settlement period.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it can happen quite quickly.
Kyrillos Mansour:It can happen, but yeah now, before we move on, you've mentioned, uh, pexa, and so, for anyone that's um not aware, pexa is an online portal um where simon and the solicitor on the other side they they meet up. They virtually um and, and you know, things occur in this portal and it's all virtual.
Saimon Sami:Now.
Kyrillos Mansour:PECSA, you may be surprised to hear, is relatively new. Yeah, and I find this very funny, simon, can you tell people what it was like settling a property before PECSA?
Saimon Sami:settling a property before pexa, it used to be going to the city, I believe in some big si global would probably be the building that most settlements happened in and you would walk in and start screaming people's names essentially you would be like nab a and z and then you have to find them that they put their hand up like can you?
Kyrillos Mansour:can you set the scene? So you go in, so you go into a building yeah and and so it's not. It's not like you and this other dude are meeting up. No no how many people are in this?
Speaker 2:like room in that room.
Saimon Sami:Oh, you're talking about over 100 how big is the?
Kyrillos Mansour:room oh, like are we talking? Like a boardroom size, like a bedroom size?
Saimon Sami:uh, like standard it's like it's a floor, like if you think about a building, like an office level, an office level floor.
Speaker 2:So it's not tiny, it's not tiny, no, but it's not. It's not massive, it's not massive and you've got 100 people more than that. Yeah, you've got 150 200 people.
Saimon Sami:You've got banks.
Kyrillos Mansour:Yeah, all banks are there yeah, so they've got a representative for a bank, from each bank, from every bank, a lot of banks the buying bank, the selling bank of every single person settling in this building so if you think about the big four, they're all there and then you've got your 30 lenders.
Saimon Sami:Some of them are there if they've got sermons that day. Then you've got all the solicitors from the seller side. You've all solicitors from the buyer's side. You have then people from the title office to do the transfer and you also have if, if needed you would have someone someone a representative from like Sydney Water or something like that to do the water charges.
Kyrillos Mansour:So there's a crap load of people in this building. Yeah, because there's like 100 settlements happening. You've got two solicitors per settlement. You've got two banks per settlement that's four people. So you're talking 400 people minimum right. Banks per settlement that's four people. So for like you're talking 400 people, minimum right. And then you walk into this room and like there's no order and like organization. You literally yell you would yell.
Saimon Sami:I remember. So you're just my first, my first time I had to do it like john smith settlement yeah, yeah, you would. Yeah, you'd either yell the property address, the solicitor's name, your.
Kyrillos Mansour:How long did it take to find the correct people?
Saimon Sami:Oh, pretty quick, surprisingly.
Kyrillos Mansour:Okay.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, pretty quick You'll find them. And then, they're sitting on a table and you go and then you have an instruction sheet and the sheet will tell you one exchange this check with this person. Number two.
Kyrillos Mansour:Exchange check with this person Number three go drop off check to bank a so so you're, you're literally holding a check, oh yeah, so, for example, if you're like in sydney, right, typical purchase price is like 1.15 million. Um, whatever, let's just say you're buying, you're representing a client buying a one and a half million dollar property yeah, do you have a?
Saimon Sami:check for 1.5 million dollars in your hand you would have a check for around that money, yes, and then you do, you just give it to the other bloke, yes, and he would give you checks for the adjustments and you'd give them to the bank and then the bank guy is standing there on either side of you.
Kyrillos Mansour:They take the money, they put in a briefcase and they they run to the bank before they get robbed, like is that?
Saimon Sami:yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they. I never saw what the banks did afterwards.
Kyrillos Mansour:What was the security, like in this building. Was there any security? It was a normal building.
Saimon Sami:I just went in kicked the elevator and went out.
Kyrillos Mansour:So how long did a settlement take, Like on settlement day? How long did it take?
Saimon Sami:You're talking about including travel. Yeah, including travel. Oh, like four or five hours.
Kyrillos Mansour:And how long does a settlement take?
Speaker 2:now Within 45 minutes.
Kyrillos Mansour:That's amazing Technology within 45 minutes, that's amazing Technology, technology.
Saimon Sami:The other issue that I would bring up is back then, if you were one cent short on any check, settlement will fail that day. You can't fix it that day anymore.
Kyrillos Mansour:Right, because you need a full new check.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, you can't fix it. You have to go home.
Kyrillos Mansour:And what happens? You've got this check and you're on the train right, yeah, and like you're walking and it's raining. You're walking to the building and then, I don't know, your phone rings. So you pull out your phone and like I'm sure the check's not just in your pocket, but let's just say it was even. Like the check falls into like a puddle of water and like you got to pick it up and like dry it Like settlement's not happening.
Saimon Sami:Settlement's not happening.
Speaker 2:This is silly, but that's also.
Kyrillos Mansour:It's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. It's a great experience that you experience.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, yeah, it's crazy.
Kyrillos Mansour:You'll never, ever have to do that again in your life.
Saimon Sami:No, but some states still do that. Which states I believe the Northern Territory still does it. They refuse to use PECSA. I'm unsure which other state refuses to use PECSA currently, but I know the major states do, like Victoria, South Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland they all use PECSA. What about the NT? I'm not sure, but the NT is definitely not on it Because I remember we were trying to.
Kyrillos Mansour:Yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2:Northern Territory.
Kyrillos Mansour:Thanks for that, but we love Northern Territory and the people there, just not their settlement systems. Anyway, moving on. So let's talk about some investor pitfalls. Um some, that was a very cool story. I enjoyed that. Um thanks for sharing.
Saimon Sami:But let's talk about some of the top legal mistakes investors make um, they tie in with essentially what we were talking about before, with the process, so essentially it's not conduct like if you well, actually ties in more with the whole solicitor conveyance of conversation.
Saimon Sami:Not conducting thorough due diligence is a one big thing. That um is a like a massive legal mistake where investors make using standard contracts without understanding the implications, so not realizing that standard clauses might not suit their specific investment strategy. As I was discussing before, we always have to understand what they're buying it for, ignoring potential zoning or development restrictions, not structuring their investment correctly. If the if we see this a lot where the person purchasing has already a tenant in that place, if those tenancy agreements aren't there or they're essentially poor tenancy agreements, then the person, the buyer, is now responsible for that tenant and then therefore they're essentially responsible for that tenancy agreement. If that tenancy agreement hasn't been set out prior to them purchasing, or it wasn't there or anything like that, then there is no proof of this person paying you, whatever it is in amount, as a tenant. If you're an investor, yeah, and also not understanding their obligation as a landlord if they're buying that property with a tenant in it.
Kyrillos Mansour:And the laws are constantly changing, especially around tenancy laws. Very soon in New South Wales it's going to be almost impossible to say no to pets tenants that want pets, for example so these things are constantly changing. You really, really got to be aware, and your solicitors are going to be aware of all these, so it's good to talk to them. Um, what are some clauses? Just a couple of examples that buyers should always like double check before they proceed.
Saimon Sami:I would say definitely your settlement date. That's a good one, your settlement period.
Kyrillos Mansour:It's good to know when you're settling.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, always, Because some people think it's 42 days quite standard. Some contracts have 12 weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Saimon Sami:Right, some contracts have 13 weeks and they're the ones that have major problems. Example new south wales. Stamp duty has to be paid within three months of the contract signing day. So if it's a 13-week settlement you're paying, you have to pay stamp duty prior to settling, right? I've I'm in unfortunate events when you don't settle stamp. Yes, the government will return your money for that property because you have never acquired it. But it's very, very rare you'll find 13-week settlement periods, but it has happened and essentially you would want that you know, to know when you're settling. So, especially if you're paying stem duty prior, um, building and pest inspection clauses are very important because if you don't have them and something is wrong with the property, then you're stuck with that property stuck, stuck within a contract. And if you default on the contract, then you're stuck with that property stuck, stuck within a contract and if you default on the contract you're liable for that price. But you have a property that has term wise or structural issues.
Saimon Sami:Um, finance clauses is another one. Um, I know a lot of people you don't see too much in new south wales where you have finance clauses, but you see them in a lot of other states where essentially there's a clause that allows you to pull out of the contract if finance isn't given by a certain date. Um, I guess this is happening more and more common these days, where you know banks are asking essentially for an arm and a leg to give you a loan, where essentially you don't know if you're going to get this loan. You You're not unconditional yet they still have to do a valuation, they come valued under things like that. That clause essentially helps the buyer pull out of that contract without any ramifications. Yeah, so I would say the top three would probably be building in PEST, your finance clause, your settlement debt.
Kyrillos Mansour:Cool probably be building in? Pest. Your finance clause, your settlement date, cool. What are some tips for investors looking to buy um interstate? Um, well, obviously in sydney. So when we say interstate, so talking outside of new south wales. Do you have tips for these investors from a legal perspective? You know understanding the legal differences.
Saimon Sami:For example, yeah, my number one tip was to would be engage a solicitor that is licensed and experienced in that state.
Speaker 2:Yeah, such as myself yeah, yes, because like not all solicitors will do all states again.
Saimon Sami:So if you ask me a question about northern territory, I can't answer you. I've never done it. I don't know. I can't say I can't, you know, I don't know. It's very similar to tasmania, um, but like things like new south wales, queensland, south australia, victoria, these are states that we've been working and purchasing in for the last, you know, three to four years, so we're aware of their laws, we're aware of the regulations that are changing around the way where, how the contracts looks, things like that. Um, we have to, you have to understand specific contract laws in every state, right? So property is local and so is property law. So it doesn't don't assume that your home state, your home state rules apply everywhere yeah, right sorry, we keep going no
Kyrillos Mansour:no, okay, no, I was just going to say it's like what we're talking about before um, understanding the differences, understanding that every state is different, um, from a buying perspective, and then also the legal perspective. And so, yeah, that's why we do use trinity, legal and migration and simon and adriana and jordan and and the rest of the team, because they can do pretty much every state that we purchase in and say they know those contracts and the legalities and the personalities back to front. For example, western Australia, there's no cooling off period. No, there isn't. And so if you're buying a property in Perth or WA for the first time and you're hearing no cooling off period, you're gonna freak out yeah, but they have a lot of clauses that do protect you correct like building and pest finance.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, these are standard clauses.
Speaker 2:You don't have to negotiate for it, it's just no, they're there um, but there are also differences, the different.
Kyrillos Mansour:Like there's a in in queensland, a building, a pest clause. The buyer has the, the decision after the building and pest inspection is completed, what they want to do with that information, correct? Do they want to negotiate for a better price? Do they want to negotiate to have the work fixed or do they want to terminate? The contract based off the building and pest In WA. It's not that simple.
Saimon Sami:No, I think you would have to let them know in a certain period of time and they, the vendor, would then make a decision if they want to fix it or not yeah, so the vendor actually has the right.
Kyrillos Mansour:so, whilst you don't have a cooling off period, you do have a building and pest clause, but but based off the results, the vendor actually makes a decision on whether they want to fix it, give you a price reduction or not. And so if you found structural damage, the vendor has the right to say I'm going to fix it. And you might be thinking, okay, cool, if the vendor is going to fix it, what's the big deal? You still sometimes you really don't want to buy that property if it had structural damage, even if that's been fixed, because that might lead to more problems down the line, even though it's been sorted out, or why were there issues? And so really the vendor has a lot of power there. So it's really good to understand the differences, and so sometimes you might door building a pest before signing a contract in the way. So it's very important to know the differences in um, in in states and in the legal requirements. Now I feel like a story before you continue, there's one more.
Speaker 2:Sorry, you've got a big point, yeah, sorry there's the.
Saimon Sami:The other thing that's probably a massive difference between the states is stamp duty. All right, stamp duty is a big one, um, because essentially they all have different calculations on how they calculate. Stamp duty is a big one, um, because essentially they all have different calculations on how they calculate stamp duty. But, example, in queensland, to purchase a home to live in and to invest are different to stamp duties. They're two different prices, rather than new south wales where it's standard if you're investing, if you're buying, it doesn't really matter. Um, it's the same price. Um, I can't keep up with who's most expensive currently Victoria, victoria, okay, that's who's. Victoria also now also has land tax based on $200,000 and above.
Kyrillos Mansour:Yeah, so the land tax rules changed. Yeah, so the land tax threshold has decreased dramatically To $200, 200, yeah, and so pretty much if you're buying in Metro, melbourne or Geelong or something, you're going to be paying land tax.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, it's not substantial, but yeah, but it's something that you have to pay.
Kyrillos Mansour:Correct that you weren't paying before. So, yeah, these are good points. Stamp duty does differ state on state. South australia has stem duty even. It's got this extra little one on top transfer transfer duty that people get um shocked by um. New south wales it's just the one, but you know it's quite hefty. Victoria is quite big yeah, everyone is, and actually it's quite difficult to calculate um, but luckily one of our sponsors on this show, property Property Calculator Australia you can just plug in all your numbers and it'll literally tell you how much the stamp duty is within three seconds. That'll help. So you download the app. Okay, I'm in the mood for a story, yeah, and I want to hear a story and I don't want you to be modest, I don't want no humility. I want to enjoy a story here. Doesn't have to be long. I want to know of a story over an example of a deal where your legal intervention save the client. Maybe save the client from buying a dud or something crazy, or save them saving, uh, you know, hundreds of thousands, I don't know.
Saimon Sami:Yeah, I want to be entertained so, funny enough, it's actually one of um, it's one of the ones that you sent us once, uh, quite a while ago now. Did the buyer's agent make a mistake?
Saimon Sami:no no, by the agent's mistakes here. Um, it was more, um, persistence from the client rather than anything else. The buyer's agent found the property where it was a very good price, very high yield. So this this purchaser loved it. They want to buy it, no matter what happened. They want to sign contracts immediately Very rare because normally they don't want to sign anything but in this circumstance they were so eager to get this because it had a very good yield, very good price.
Saimon Sami:I think it was undervalued because that's what KM does, him and his team. But essentially they were going to buy this place just based on a virtual tour no building and pest, no, nothing. They just said, okay, yeah, someone will walk through with a camera and they'll show you the house and that's how you buy it. And he said, yeah, that's amazing, I'm going to get to you the house and that's how you buy. And he said, yep, that's amazing, I'm gonna get to see the house and I live, you know, in new south wales and I'm buying in, you know, I think it was queensland yada, yada, yada. And the contract included a special condition stating that you're buying the property as is and there's no recourse for any defects. Um, during our.
Saimon Sami:During our review, we strongly advised against proceeding without a physical inspection or a building and pest inspection by a professional and highlighted the significant risks of this clause. The client in the beginning still said, nah, it's alright, I trust them, it's all good, I have the virtual tour I've seen go ahead. There's ramifications. If something you find in the walls termites, like you said before, structural damage will cost you who knows how much these days, not a builder, but a lot of money, then this person is now stuck with this home, can't live in it, can't tenant it out, can't do anything with it, can only sell it with your has to sell it and also let them know that the structural damage because now he's aware of it.
Saimon Sami:Um, the client initially resisted, wanting to secure the property. However, after persistent advice by myself, um they they agreed to do the building inspection inspection. The inspection revealed significant structural issues that would have cost about 10 to 20 000, 20, 10 to 20 000 um. Ultimately um let like essentially asking the vendor to fix these problems. The vendor had no clue of these issues, um, and essentially said they were unable to fix it at the time. So, if so, essentially we pulled out of that contract and saved the client substantial financial loss and the property riddled with problems it's a nice story.
Kyrillos Mansour:Thanks, I liked it. Yeah, you saved a life I was trying to. I was trying to think the entire time who who you're referring to?
Kyrillos Mansour:but I actually can't, I can't remember, I can't think of this um particular transaction, but very interesting, it's a good story and you know, these are real life things that can occur and it happens every single day where, where people are not aware or savvy in this industry because it's not what they do, they end up work, and so it's very important to have this listener on your side to to really like you said really early on um be your personal bodyguard. Now we'll start wrapping this up, but a couple of final points.
Kyrillos Mansour:Obviously, we work very closely and it's good for the solicitor I believe it's good for your solicitor and your buyer's agent to have a good working relationship, because often there are times where not just with the solicitor, often there are times with, like, the broker, where I will call a client's broker and we'll get some information. There's things going on back and forth. We go back and forth, we sort, we sort issues out and the client has absolutely no idea any of this is happening like there's so much work that happens behind the scenes and we don't want to trouble the client. Maybe we should let them know. Maybe they give us a tip, um, but there's so much work going on behind the scenes, um, like you said, the process is massive. There's so many things going on, um, and so sometimes we finance, um, there are issues with finance, or we need rent. You know the brokers, like we need rental places and that, and and if we know the broker, like a power loans broker, for example, freddie, mark, matteo, matthew, um, whoever's there, they they call me and they just say, hey, km, can we get a rental place? And we get these figures and the client's absolutely got no clue. They're chilling and they're peaceful, and that's the entire idea of the team is that things are peaceful for you. There's no stress.
Kyrillos Mansour:A lot of the time it's the same thing with the solicitor. Just yesterday we were discussing name change. One of our clients is changing their name contract's already signed. So instead of going to the client and saying hey, call the solicitor because I know who they're working with, it's very easy. I just pick up the phone, call Simon or Adriana or whoever's doing the job and explain the process, explain the issue and get things fixed. Actually, two days ago I called the agent, got Simon on the call and we had a three-way phone call conference call and smashed out a bunch of details for this client and, like I said, the client's got no idea that any of this is happening, but things are getting worked out in the background. So my question to you is how does a solicitor and buyer's agent work together best from your perspective? Because I think from our perspective, when you know the other person and you've done a lot of work, it becomes almost even though we're separate companies. It becomes like a one-stop shop and everything just flows. Do you, do you have the same opinion?
Speaker 2:do you have?
Kyrillos Mansour:any other.
Saimon Sami:I agree, I think you're the nail on the head with um, essentially with working within, like you know, this essential team. That's again separate companies but there's like one, one team really that we work with um. We have early communication, we have clear information, you know between each other coordinated, you know due diligence. So we know, we know in settlement days, we know when finance date clauses are. So, with example, when we do work, you know, with power loans, they know the finance date, I know the finance date clauses are. So, for example, when we do work with power loans, they know the finance date, I know the finance date. Firstbrick knows the finance date.
Saimon Sami:So essentially, it is not only just that you have someone looking after each thing, but you have the other person knowing these very crucial dates to the client. So if the client calls any of us, they can get the same answer, um, it's a very streamlined process, like alos mentioned, where essentially, um, you don't. Actually, if my communication with my clients should only be in the very beginning, where I'm talking to them about the advice and advising them and if any, if any questions arise, they're, you know, welcome to call me at any time and answer their questions, but other than that I don't require anything from them up until you know a week or two before settlement where you know little logistics and admin and things like that are needed. Other than that, it's ultimately both solicitor and the buyer's agent working towards the same goal helping the client secure the right property under the best possible terms yeah, amazing.
Kyrillos Mansour:So make sure you have your team set up and make sure, I think. But, for example, we've got a client at the moment who's using a different system. They want to use their own um, which is cool. We don't force anyone to, you know, use, use you guys. We don't. You know, we don't threaten them. I mean, sometimes we do, but anyway, um, so he is using his own fella um, which is cool. But the amount of back and forth that this client is experiencing from myself and from the solicitor because we don't know each other, we don't work together and this solicitor has his own particular style of um doing things and we have our style of doing things and we, we're not clashing, but we're we're not in full sync, because he doesn't know how we do things either.
Kyrillos Mansour:So, like with simon, for example, and trinity legal, when we buying a property in queensland or south australia or whatever, they know exactly what we're going to do, for example, in south australia, we, you know, we're not stressed, we got two days cooling off. There's there's no risk of term. There's no risk. If you terminate, you haven't paid anything. There's. For us it's like a no-brainer sign 100 contracts if you need to even terminate 99 of them, even continue the one. But that way you've got it under control.
Kyrillos Mansour:Then we can get Simon to and a lot of solicitors don't like that, and even Simon might not like that, to be honest. I really haven't asked him, but he knows what we're going to do, so he knows our process and so he works with our process, and likewise we know when he's going to touch point with the client this other client who's using their own people so much back and forth even like we did a building and pest inspection and we got some things that we want to negotiate Typically I just send an email to the agent. Firstly I call the agent, then I send an email and then 99% of the time, we get it resolved. In this scenario, the solicitor wants to do things through him and send it across to the vendor solicitor, who's then going to have to call the agent. Who's really going to have to call the client, the vendor itself, and then, um, then the vendor is going to have to tell the agent. The agent's going to have to tell the vendor solicitor, the vendor solicitor is going to have to tell the buyer solicitor, the buyer solicitor is going to have to tell me. Then I'm going to have to tell the client. Very long process to do something that I usually do in like under 10 minutes, but simply because he's got a different process and you know so sometimes having a team that really understands each other is really beneficial for you as a client.
Kyrillos Mansour:But this has been a really good episode, so I'll just recap. So a solicitor is your personal bodyguard in the property purchase process. There are different conveyances. There are legal professionals, legal solicitors, legal lawyers, qualified legal lawyers. They are qualified lawyers. Their impact and their role is to protect you throughout the process.
Kyrillos Mansour:Simon's given us a really detailed description of the entire purchasing process from a legal perspective, and when you should engage a solicitor as early as you can, what happens during each phase, some common issues and mistakes that people make. We've also discussed the differences in states and how important it is to understand those differences, and your solicitor will be well aware of all these things. We've heard some really, really cool stories as well, so it's been a really interesting episode, but, as you can probably tell from listening, there's so much more to unpack and because of that, we've got our follow-up episode next week with another member of the Trinity Legal team. We'll keep that one a secret until next week. We'll keep it a surprise, but it's been a really good episode and there's so much more to unpack. So we'll see you guys next week on that one. But quickly, simon, any final thoughts or things you wanted to put out there that you're dying to tell someone? Someone's listening to this right now.
Saimon Sami:No, not really. Essentially, it's good to always remember that these things take time. Rushing things is not always the best avenue for this type of stuff. So, yeah, fast is good, but safe and fast is better.
Kyrillos Mansour:You got a lot of quotes today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I liked them.
Kyrillos Mansour:I've known you for a long time. You don't know no quotes. I know a lot of quotes.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of research. There's a lot of research, that's prep.
Kyrillos Mansour:Yeah, that's prep, that's good, thanks, cool. If someone wants to reach out to you and they need you to have a look at a contract or want you to take over and help them with their process for purchasing a property, where can they reach you? And or Trinity Legal.
Saimon Sami:They can reach me personally on simon at trinitylegalmigrationcomau or there is info at trinitylegalmigrationcomau.
Kyrillos Mansour:We'll put all of those in the show notes, because someone's going to send you an email and they're going to send it to Simon S-I-M-O-N. And that's not how you spell your name. So we will put all the emails in the show notes. So if you need to reach out to Simon or Trinity Legal, it will all be there. Thank you very much, simon, for joining.
Saimon Sami:Thank you.
Kyrillos Mansour:Hopefully we'll have you on again once we get some feedback from this episode on the fan mail button that you can find in the show notes as well. So if you have any questions, please use the button. We're trying to invest heavily into this podcast, not just with gear. Today we think we've figured out how to use the microphones. It took another two hours to work it out, but I think the audio has come out quite well. Compared to last week, that could have just been KG being poor on the microphone.
Saimon Sami:He won't listen to this, so it's fine.
Kyrillos Mansour:Anyway, thank you very much. It was a very good episode and thank you for listening.
Saimon Sami:Thank you.
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