Buying or selling a rural farm is very different to buying or selling residential or commercial land. There are very different issues that need to be addressed in the contract, to properly protect each party to the transaction. It is important that you obtain advice from a solicitor experienced in these sort of transactions.
We ensure that we work collaboratively with your other advisors, such as your accountant, financial planner and your financier to address all issues relevant to the transaction.
Things to consider include how to treat GST, whether the crop or cattle form part of the sale and if not then the contract should detail how and when the seller will harvest the crop or remove cattle from the farm and contain clauses dealing with liability issues during this process.
If the wrong form contract is used, this can unknowingly lead to the seller losing 10% of the sale price to the Australian Tax Office – for GST. If the contract does not deal with all matters, you may end up with some loose ends that you did not think of after the contract is settled.
Kelly Parker has helped many rural farmers over the years. We can provide sellers and buyers assistance with rural transactions. The level of assistance we provide is completely up to you – whether we only assist in ensuring the contract is correct and deals with all issues, assist with the whole transaction or somewhere in between.
