The secret land rent lender un-veiled!

Bendigo bank is good and has low fees – and they are a proper alternative to the big banks.
But they have minimal ATMs.

Cheers for info, Ant.

miz said :

None of these half-arsed schemes are much chop IMO – neither this one nor the shared equity one. They just don’t get it.
…
I am pretty annoyed with Community CPS since the mergers started too – my end of month fees are now over $20.
…
If anyone has experienced IMB I would be interested in their perspective in changing over.

Housing priced closer to the average income? Yeah, I’d sure like to see that too, rather than these weird stunts.

CPS have been creeping up their fees, it’s certainly nothing like waht it used to be. That said, they gave me a loan when the banks shuffled their feet and found excuses not to lend to me, and sadly IMB was one of them. CPS said no problem and did I want to borrow more? (my case for borrowing was excellent and I still don’t know what the problem was with the others, other than it didn’t fit into a neat little box).

I can’t see who would be interested in this scheme – I certainly am not, though I would LOVE to have the opportunity to buy my govie house. None of these half-arsed schemes are much chop IMO – neither this one nor the shared equity one. They just don’t get it.

I am pretty annoyed with Community CPS since the mergers started too – my end of month fees are now over $20. They just keep saying ‘get money out at the supermarket when tou eftpos’. conveniently forgetting that supermarkets often run out of cash and don’t always like to give large cash outs.

If anyone has experienced IMB I would be interested in their perspective in changing over.

Sepi has put it more comprehensively than I ever could. rural leases have been a nightmare for decades… mainly for the rural lesees themselves.

IN 1970, the Australian Government abolished land rent in the ACT, but retained the leasehold system. However, rural leases were not covered by the abolition, and so they continued to pay land rent. I recall our rent increased 10-fold in one year, and this continued to happen on the caprices of the federal valuer. It was on unimproved value, but, when the district occupants developed businesses and amenity in our area, the unimproved value was deemed to have exploded and so did the rent.

Many battles were fought in the AAT, with lawyers of course. at one point the government seemed set on ignoring the findings of the tribunal.

Rural leases can be resumed at any time, and owners (lessees, I should say) are compensated only for “improvements” ie house, fence etc. Not environmental work, pasture work, weed work etc.

Sepi’s explanations of land use clauses etc are very comprehensive, it’s a really complex area and the c’wealth and later local gov’t do not have good track records in this.

And this situation makes me wonder about how it will work for this new urban scheme, as I’ve seen first-hand how the government re-interpreted things in order to control the land, and extract ever more money from occupants for being on it.

Rural leases in the ACT are an absolute mess.
The govt can change the rules at any time they choose.

ACT govt ‘manages’ the leases, but Commonwealth have input into the ‘uses’ and ‘rural appearance’ of the land – eg – the approach to Canberra on Fed Hwy has to be agricultural or tourism oriented.

The govt can get lessees to re-sign their leases at any time, under different conditions – as was done to the poor old couple whose property was the proposed dragway track.

Govt can ‘resume’ the rural lease at any time (under many of the leases) and only have to pay the owners for the value of ‘land improvements’ (eg – buildings). Not a cent for the land.

And once leases are re-started, they cannot be on-sold within 10 years, without attracting a windfall gain clause, whereby the seller gets only 10% of the profit, govt taxing the rest. – Not so good when the owners are not well off and in their seventies.

And – on selling the land, buyers are told the ‘land use’ may be changed upon buying, but they will have to buy the land-lease first, and then apply for permission to use it how they wish (even in the same way as the previous owner). Who who is going to buy something with no guarantee that they can even use it? {Except if you are that developer who bought Canberry Fair in Watson and is now going to get to build houses on it – so much for the green vista on approach to Canberra}.

Rural leases are a shocking rort in the ACT – they are an accident of history that the govt is gradually trying to get rid of by heavying the remaining lesees.

If you have a rural lease, do not sign anything without a lawyer.

Not so sure about the 999 year lease. I have a vague memory of a push for that about a decade ago, but the government of the day (Libs I think, but just from the timing) didn’t go with it. It’s all very vague now.

Farms near the urban fringe had a very tough deal, because they were put on month-by-month leases for years, ostensibly to allow for future urban growth. All ACT Governments have treated the rural lesees very badly in a lot of respects.

I assume there is still a 99 year lease with these residential schemes – who owns it? And can the ACT Government decide that if you’re too much trouble, like the Tullys, then they can deal with you a bit more harshly. For example – who gets the house if you miss a rent payment?

People living on rural leases buy and sell their homes the same as people in suburbs. I can’t remember when ACT land was converted to what suburban people enjoy now, but it was way before self government, I don’t know where you got the self government thing from.

People in rural areas pay land rent every year, and it’s pegged to unimproved value. If the gov’t valuer decides the land is very valuable, the land rent can increase 10-fold in one year, as it did back in the 80s for example. After years of fighting in the AAT, rural people won the right to re-buy their places, buying out the rent-portion of their holdings. Rural leases aren’t just open cow-farm paddocks. It’s Pialligo, Majura, Symonston, all the fringe areas. And when they hit the market, they bear a market price for purchase.

I’d be wary of this new scheme, having seen what the gov’t land valuer could do to the yearly land rent. Disputing this was lengthy and expensive.

Can they up the rent then like every other greedy so and so landlord round here at will?

I would expect the owner of the asset to do whatever they liked with it. CPS wouldn’t be the owner of the asset, though.

ant said :

YapYapYap said :

That’s because they are tenants. They are are simply renting govt owned land, and like all tenants they pay rent.

Rural lesees “buy” their land and homes, same as other ACT residents. Difference is, they continue to pay rent on the land. It’s an anomaly that was overlooked at some point when ACT residents were absolved from paying rent on their land (which they don’t own, they rent). No one in the ACT owns their land, but some residents also get to keep paying. This Stanhope scheme is rather similar to the original system.

Sorry ant, you’re wrong. The Commonwealth resumed the vast majority rural leasehold land (in fact all, to my knowledge) well before self-govt. Leaseholders were paid what was deemed to fair compensation at the time, and allowed to continue to use those leases under a land rent system. This was done in order that future expansion of the city could go ahead without undue impedance.

If there are any current exceptions to this I’d need to see a copy of the lease to be convinced.