Latest / Best of Business / Mario Thorne: McVeagh Fleming Associate on the Government streamlining the process for selling houses owned by family trusts

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

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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Ryan Bridge.
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  Speaker 2: Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee has today announced plans to
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  Speaker 2: loosen up the anti money laundering laws when it comes
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  Speaker 2: to family trusts. Mario Thorn is an associate at McVeigh
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  Speaker 2: Fleming and he's part of the Society of Trust and
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  Speaker 2: Estate Practitioners. He's with us to break it down. Maria,
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  Speaker 2: good evening, thanks for being on the program.
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  Speaker 3: Good evening, my pleasure, Thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 2: So what exactly is going on here? It's to make
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  Speaker 2: the process of selling to or from a trust a
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  Speaker 2: property easier, is it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think in a nutshell basically because and I
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  Speaker 3: don't often agree with the phrase using cutting through red tape,
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  Speaker 3: but I actually think that's kind of heading the nail
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  Speaker 3: on the head in this case. There is a lot
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  Speaker 3: of red tape around due diligence that reporting entities are
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  Speaker 3: required to do in relation to trusts that are buying
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  Speaker 3: or selling residential property. And yeah, quite frankly, the burdens
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  Speaker 3: are quite high. And yeah, it's a simplified process would
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  Speaker 3: be a welcome change.
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  Speaker 2: Because the worry is that you've got money laundering, potentially
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  Speaker 2: money laundering involved, So you've got people who have got
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  Speaker 2: nothing to do with money laundering having to provide documents,
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  Speaker 2: you know, left, right and center documents as long as
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  Speaker 2: there are. How long does that process take?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously it depends on a case by case basis,
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  Speaker 3: but generally it's yeah, the time. It can be quite
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  Speaker 3: time consuming overall, particularly where you're asking questions for information
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  Speaker 3: that is not readily available or doesn't even exist because
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  Speaker 3: the act, the a MLCFT Act, has put a lot
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  Speaker 3: of the burden on reporting entities to make a lot
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  Speaker 3: of these inquiries themselves, and everyone takes a very conservative approach,
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  Speaker 3: so they tend to throw throw everything at the wall
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  Speaker 3: to see what sticks. Kind of approach, and they ask
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  Speaker 3: for a lot of information, like you know, dating back
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  Speaker 3: to the inception of the trust that could be sort
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  Speaker 3: of thirty forty years old some of these trusts, and
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  Speaker 3: some of that information has lost of time. Some of
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  Speaker 3: that information never existed because the trusts were just a
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  Speaker 3: simple entity created to own a family's home. And then
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  Speaker 3: you're left with trustees and mums and dad scratching their
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  Speaker 3: head going, how am I supposed to produce these things
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  Speaker 3: when I don't even know if they exist or not. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: it sounds so, yeah, it can take a bit of time.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds sensible. So far, How do you what they only
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  Speaker 2: talk about low risk transactions? How do you know whether
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  Speaker 2: something's low risk or not?
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's a good question, and I'd really be
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  Speaker 3: interested to see how that's defined in the future, because
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  Speaker 3: I think all of us have a sense of what
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  Speaker 3: is risk, because I think the vast majority of transactions
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  Speaker 3: that that we do, in the ones that I've been
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  Speaker 3: involved with, you are dealing with really straightforward situations where
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  Speaker 3: it's clear where the funds have come from, it's clear
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  Speaker 3: how the how the trust was established, what the purpose
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  Speaker 3: of the trust was, and everything like that. And then
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  Speaker 3: to cast the net too wide and ask for all
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  Speaker 3: these invasive documents. Yeah, it's it's it's it's cracking an
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  Speaker 3: utwith the sleechhammer kind of approach. So but you know,
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  Speaker 3: that's just my feeling. I think I think some clear
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  Speaker 3: guidance from the d i A on what constitutes at
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  Speaker 3: low risk will be will be very welcome, a very
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  Speaker 3: welcome thing from them, yet, because we all have an idea,
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  Speaker 3: but you'd be better if we could get some clear
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  Speaker 3: guidance on that.
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  Speaker 2: Murray, appreciate your time. Tonight Maray Thorne, associate at McVeigh Fleming,
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  Speaker 2: talking to us about the government's move the Cole mckeys
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  Speaker 2: move today to make it easier if you've got a
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  Speaker 2: house and a family trust, then the government's going to
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  Speaker 2: make it easier for you to ab to flick it
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  Speaker 2: on without going digging up all of the files, all
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  Speaker 2: in sundry in the bottom of your basement to prove
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  Speaker 2: that you're not laundering money.
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