Section 28A of the Duties Act 2000 (Vic) provides that
additional duty is payable when a foreign purchaser acquires
residential property in Victoria.
As of 1 July 2019, the rate of additional duty
increased to 8%. This is payable
in addition to the regular rate of duty that is otherwise payable
on the transaction. As such, in circumstances where the price of
the transaction attracts regular duty at 5.5%, the total amount of
duty that a foreign purchaser will now need to pay on that
transaction, is 13.5% of the purchase price.
Developers are of course largely impacted by these provisions,
given that the definition of residential land includes, "land
on which a purchaser intends to affix a building that is designed
...solely or primarily for residential purposes". In other
words, land that may not ordinarily appear to be a residence, will
be caught by the provisions.
