Mario Thorne: McVeagh Fleming Associate on the Government streamlining the process for selling houses owned by family trusts

A property lawyer says new proposals take a major burden off realtor's shoulders. 

The Government is streamlining the process for selling a house held by a family trust - as it makes changes to laws preventing money laundering. 

It says real estate agents must currently collective excessive amounts of information about the trust.

But McVeagh Fleming Associate Mario Thorne says documents are often missing - or never existed.  

"You're dealing with really straightforward situations where it's clear where the funds have come from - and then to cast the net too wide and ask for these invasive documents, it's cracking a nut with a sledgehammer."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio
Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has today announced plans to
loosen up the anti money laundering laws when it comes
to family trusts. Mario Thorn is an associate at McVeigh
Fleming and he's part of the Society of Trust and
Estate Practitioners. He's with us to break it down. Maria,
good evening, thanks for being on the program.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Good evening, my pleasure, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
So what exactly is going on here? It's to make
the process of selling to or from a trust a
property easier, is it.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yeah, I think in a nutshell basically because and I
don't often agree with the phrase using cutting through red tape,
but I actually think that's kind of heading the nail
on the head in this case. There is a lot
of red tape around due diligence that reporting entities are
required to do in relation to trusts that are buying

(01:12):
or selling residential property. And yeah, quite frankly, the burdens
are quite high. And yeah, it's a simplified process would
be a welcome change.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Because the worry is that you've got money laundering, potentially
money laundering involved, So you've got people who have got
nothing to do with money laundering having to provide documents,
you know, left, right and center documents as long as
there are. How long does that process take?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, obviously it depends on a case by case basis,
but generally it's yeah, the time. It can be quite
time consuming overall, particularly where you're asking questions for information
that is not readily available or doesn't even exist because
the act, the a MLCFT Act, has put a lot

(02:04):
of the burden on reporting entities to make a lot
of these inquiries themselves, and everyone takes a very conservative approach,
so they tend to throw throw everything at the wall
to see what sticks. Kind of approach, and they ask
for a lot of information, like you know, dating back
to the inception of the trust that could be sort
of thirty forty years old some of these trusts, and

(02:25):
some of that information has lost of time. Some of
that information never existed because the trusts were just a
simple entity created to own a family's home. And then
you're left with trustees and mums and dad scratching their
head going, how am I supposed to produce these things
when I don't even know if they exist or not. Okay,

(02:46):
it sounds so, yeah, it can take a bit of time.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Sounds sensible. So far, How do you what they only
talk about low risk transactions? How do you know whether
something's low risk or not?

Speaker 3 (02:57):
You know, it's a good question, and I'd really be
interested to see how that's defined in the future, because
I think all of us have a sense of what
is risk, because I think the vast majority of transactions
that that we do, in the ones that I've been
involved with, you are dealing with really straightforward situations where

(03:18):
it's clear where the funds have come from, it's clear
how the how the trust was established, what the purpose
of the trust was, and everything like that. And then
to cast the net too wide and ask for all
these invasive documents. Yeah, it's it's it's it's cracking an
utwith the sleechhammer kind of approach. So but you know,

(03:39):
that's just my feeling. I think I think some clear
guidance from the d i A on what constitutes at
low risk will be will be very welcome, a very
welcome thing from them, yet, because we all have an idea,
but you'd be better if we could get some clear
guidance on that.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Murray, appreciate your time. Tonight Maray Thorne, associate at McVeigh Fleming,
talking to us about the government's move the Cole mckeys
move today to make it easier if you've got a
house and a family trust, then the government's going to
make it easier for you to ab to flick it
on without going digging up all of the files, all
in sundry in the bottom of your basement to prove
that you're not laundering money.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
For more from News Talk sed B, listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio