With housing affordability being a major issue many parents are offering to support their children into the purchase of a home.

Often in the heady rush of doing so the parents fail to consider the implications of the step they are about to take.

Make a gift or loan?

If the payment is a gift, [...]

In a recent case in Western Australia the beneficiaries of a will, drafted by the deceased using a will kit, were required to go to court for directions because they did not understand what the deceased had written. This caused a lot of expense for the estate, money that would have benefited the family [...]

It is not uncommon for two people with similar goals to come together, form a company and develop a good business.

One or both will be a director and each will hold shares either equally or in unequal amounts depending on initial contributions.

What happens when a shareholder dies? Does the surviving shareholder simply [...]

Recently I have advised young couples who have entered into shared home ownership agreements with the parent or parents of one of them.

One of the agreements was verbal ( therefore unenforceable under property law in most jurisdictions) and the other in writing but it was the verbal one that was working. A major [...]

A number of parents are supporting their children into home purchases by providing personal guarantees for a sum sufficient to give comfort to the lender.

Parents are optimists and confident their exposure will be limited in both amount and time because of undying faith in their offspring.

Usually the children are in relationships themselves [...]

What is an agreement? Simply it is a meeting of two or more parties that may or may not be binding on them.

Agreements can be verbal or in writing, partly verbal, partly in writing and if things get really complex can even have terms implied.

Agreements turn into contracts when there [...]