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 (00:00):
Crayin Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
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
a State Practitioners. He's with us to break it down.
Marag Good evening, thanks for being on the program.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Good evening, my pleaser, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
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 1 (00:33):
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 hitting 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 through trusts that are buying

(00:55):
or selling residential property. And yeah, quite frankly, the burdens
quite high. And yeah, it's a simplified process would be
a welcome change.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
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 1 (01:24):
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 MLC FT Act, has put a

(01:47):
lot 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 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,

(02:08):
and some of that information has lost the time. Some
of that information never existed because the trust 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,

(02:29):
So yeah, it can take a bit of time.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
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 1 (02:41):
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 low risk,
because I think the vast majority of transactions that we do,
in the ones that I've been involved with, you are
dealing with really straightforward situations where it's clear where the

(03:03):
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 sleechhammer kind of approach.
So but you know, that's just my feel. I think

(03:24):
I think some clear guidance from the DA 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 (03:40):
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 loaned ring money.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Listen live to News Talks it B from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.