Hi Nicole
Apologies for the late response. I returned to work only yesterday and am catching up on messages.
You are not alone in your confusion on this topic. The confusion has resulted from evolving rules and the need, in the digital world, to bring the Land Registry and OSR into alignment. In the digital world, these two entities must work from the same (PEXA) data. I know it sounds odd, and NSW is not alone in this regard, but Land Registries and Revenue offices look at the same data in different ways. The Land Registry is concerned only with the resultant proprietorship on title, while the OSR is concerned only with any incremental (dutialble) share that a Party is receiving. It has taken some time to work through how the same data captured via electronic conveyancing may be consumed and used by these two disparate organisations each with differing requirements.
I will seek to explain below. Please come back to me if you have more questions.
From Monday Feb 8, it will be allowable in NSW to sever a Joint tenancy, provided all parties in the Joint tenancy group are represented. Up until Feb 8, severance of Joint tenancy groups in NSW is not permitted,
Hence from Feb 8, if you have, for example, A and B as Joint Tenants transferring to A,
(A+B) --> A
then, this will be permitted in PEXA provided both A and B are represented. (A and B may be represented by the same or different transaction Participants (subscribers)).
From Feb 8, PEXA will allow, in the example above, Party A, as PoT, to be carried forward as IP. Doing so will enable NSW OSR will recognise that because Party A relinquishing is the same Party as A receiving, that the dutiable portion for Party A will be 1/2 and not 1. Further, the representative of Party A will be billed only once for Party A as PoT and not once for Party A as PoT and again for Party A as IP.
Please do let me know if you have more questions.
Rgds
George
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