Company or Partnership!

I suggest find your self a good Lawyer, and an Accountant,  Talk to them before making any decesion, with 8 different oppnions, it is good to spend the money and talk to the professional as how best to structure it, entry, exit and other conditions, must be agreed amoung all participants before you go looking for properties. Ask all the questions such as the above they will best be able to answer your questions on the spot.
Partnership is too risky. Good Luck

Its going to be very messy with 8 people. How are you going to agree on things? (maybe good to have an odd number?).

I would probably look at using a unit trust too. But who will be the trustee? Having 8 trustees could complicate things – you will need 8 people to sign eveything!

Lenders will usually require guarantees from each director if a company and each trustee if a trust. They may also require guarantees from unit holders in some cases.

Having 8 people guarantee a loan increases the risk dramatically. If it falls over, all could fall – though very unlikely.

If you are going to be doing  a few of these, then what about splitting it up a bit. Maybe have 2 people involved as guarantors for the first one, with a discretionary trust in there somewhere so all could get the profits. Then for the next one have a new entity with the next 2 people etc. In terms of borrowing you will get much further this way.

if 8 people sign loan docs, then for the next loan you get, whether on your own or joinlty, the lender will assume you own the whole debt (cause you will have to pay if the other 7 won't), but they will only take into account 1/8th of the rental income (cause this is your share). So you can see this will quickly exhaust your borrowing cap.

In what form are the tax benefits realised? I believe there was a Victorian bill passed in response to a ruling pertaining to trust, where some form of "work-around" of tax was vindicated….

I am particularly interested in finding more about obligations of the trustee (s), not including those constructed in the deed. Is there a act/regulation pertaining to the adminstration of trusts and responsibility of trustees? In particular with respect to cases of multiple trustees as to whether signatures from all trustees be required for, say, borrowing on behalf of the trust.