C O V E R S T O RY
STAMP OF
APPROVAL PREVIEW You could save thousands on your next property purchase with the newly reinstated stamp duty concession. Read our guide to find out if you’re eligible.
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remier Campbell Newman is making good on the LNP pre-election promise to ease the burden on the state’s property industry and home buyers. On 10 April 2012, Newman announced that Cabinet approved the reinstatement of an important concession. The stamp duty concession for non-first-home buyers purchasing a principal place of residence is back and it’s estimated the move, which comes into effect on July 1, will save individual buyers up to $7000. Stamp duty is simply a tax collected by the State Government, and the current rule is that a concession is available for the transfer of a purchaser’s first home. No duty applies for homes valued up to $500,000, and a phasing-out rebate applies for values up to $600,000. This concession is available only to first-home buyers who satisfy certain requirements. Before August 1, 2011, a duty concession was also available to buyers who weren’t purchasing their first home, but the then
Queensland Government dropped the concession for non-first-home buyers, hoping to raise much-needed revenue. Less than a year later, the concession is back in. For Queensland home buyers the news is good, provided they meet the concession requirements. The home being purchased can be a new or established dwelling and the buyer can have owned property before, so the concession isn’t a boost or grant to encourage new buyers into the market or new homes to be built.
The stamp duty concession for non-first home buyers … will save individual buyers up to $7000 Buyers will have to meet some conditions, such as moving into the home within a year of buying it and staying there for at least a year. According to the Office of State Revenue, “Where the concession applies, a concessional transfer duty rate of $1 for each $100 or part of $100 will apply to the first $350,000 of the consideration or value of the home. Duty at the general rates will apply to any remaining part of the consideration or value. The transfer duty rate structure and the phasing-out arrangements for the first home concession that existed before August 1, 2011 will also be reinstated for contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2012.” Purchasers are warned the government will be on the lookout for buyers who are making arrangements to push the transfer into July in order to avoid the tax. Any buyer who has made arrangements with a seller to purchase the property but attempts to delay signing the contract until July 1 will probably find the agreement scrutinised by the government and will have some explaining to do.
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