Question
of the week Question of the week

Curious. Interesting. Informative.

21 April 2017

56 years on and still a ten pound pom

Sale, Purchase, Mortgage, Lease
New South Wales

Asked

I have a client purchasing residential land in NSW. She has previously owned residential land in NSW.

She was born in the UK. She emigrated to Australian in 1961 with her parents as a ‘ten pound pom’. She has a NSW driver licence and Medicare card and a photocopy of her birth certificate. She has no citizenship certificate or passport or visa.

What evidence do I need to obtain to satisfy her permanent resident status for both the NSW OSR and LPI?

Answered

Thanks for the question.

For a brief time between 26 January 1944 and 26 January 1949, a British subject resident in Australia, automatically became an Australian citizen. Otherwise, before and after this time, an application has been required in order to obtain Australian citizenship. Ten pound poms were issued a Document of Identity rather than a passport to allow entry into Australia. Children were listed on the parents’ identity card and this Document of Identity can be used when applying/renewing a British passport or to obtain a permanent residence visa for Australia. To obtain a copy of the Document of Identity search the National Archives of Australia which holds post-1923 travel and immigration records.

OSR

For individuals, evidence of their date of birth is required. A certified copy of her current Australian driver licence will be sufficient identification.

To avoid surcharge purchaser duty OSR requires she be 'ordinarily resident in Australia' which means an individual who has actually been in Australia during 200 or more days in the period of 12 months immediately preceding that time, and is not (or was not, immediately before their most recent departure from Australia) subject to any limitation as to time for their continued presence in Australia. However, evidence which must be provided upon request is a certified copy of the foreign passport with current visa and evidence of meeting the ‘ordinarily resident’ definition.

For the first home owners grant, citizenship or permanent residency is required.

LPI

Compliance with the VOI requirements are set out in our VOI publication. You must be satisfied as to her identity having taken ‘reasonable steps’ which are not specified and rely upon common law principles.

Reasonable steps may include factors such as the length of time the practitioner has known the person or whether they have acted for the person on previous occasions or following the VOI standard. It sounds as though she does not have the minimum document requirements to rely on the Verification of Identity standard.

Regards,

Mentor