Being a director is a role, not property that can fall into the hands of creditors – but the shares of the company can. So it may be a good idea to change trustees asap.

first thing to do is to review the deed. Find out who has the power to change trustees. Often it will be the appointor, sometimes it may be an appointor and a protector other trusts it may be the trustee.

The deed must be followed strictly. If the apppointor is required to give written notification to the trustee then this must happen. Non delivery may mean the change is invalid. Even if the appoinntor is Bob and Bob is the sole director of the company Bob should send a regitered letter to himself for proof.

Legal advice should be sought, especially on the stamp duty side. In NSW there is generally no stamp duty or just $50 but there may be full duty if changing trustee means a change in the beneficiaries of the trust. Wording of the deed is important.

Any mortgages over trust property will need to be released and new loans and mortgages entered into by the new trustee. Its a major event.

And a trustee has fiduciary duties, but so does an appointor. so specialist legal advice would be a good idea before changing anything, especially if bankruptcy is looming. A bankrupt person cannot act as director, so a new director should be sought and new shareholders conisdered – a trustee of another trust perhaps. Also read the deed about what happens to the position of appointor if the appointor becomes bankrupt. In my deeds the appointor is removed automatically.

Legally speaking only if the trust terms allow it, otherwise a breach of trust.

Do you want the trustee to obtain a margin loan against the shares? (see if trustee is allowed to do this first) and then consider whether this is a good idea in terms of risk. If not talking about margin loans then perhaps you asking if the trustee can lend trust money? Again depends on the powers in the deed.

If you sold yo would have around $100k cash. Using this on a PPOR will save you around $5000 pa in interest each year for the next 20-30 years. You might then be able to borrow to invest and get something with better capital growth prospects.

Interesting Jaxon. I haven’t seen it done that way before.

Advice is not to look at land tax in isolation. No point buying somewhere with low growth only to avoid land tax.

No, buyers agent fees are a capital expense and not deductible.

Depends on the state the properties are located in.

In NSW joint owners are assessed on a single owner for land tax and then given a credit for properties they own on their own.

e.g. $500,000 worth of land held by 2 people jointly is subject to land tax.
$250,000 held each isn’t.
$500,000 joint with X owning another house with $200,000 worth of land tax = Jointly liable on the first and X liable for $250,000 plus $200,000 = $450,000 which is just over the threshold.

That is really a personal choice. keep in mind you can only use up to 90% of the value, not the equity so you may have less useable equity than you thought. I have clients that have taken loans up to 90% repeatedly and done well out of it, but keep in mind the property bubble could burst and you don’t want to be over exposed.

Ironlady – vetting of a deed by the bank should take just 1 day. Some ask for various documents which have been missed or maybe for amendments to the SMSF deed etc which could cause further delays, but it shouldn’t really take that long.

SMSF loans do tend to take longer than non smsf loans (not that there is any reason for this!). You could try asking how long, but they may not really know the answer.

Your options may be to exchange now subject to finance, wait, or find another buyer.