457 LAFHA, UK Mortgage or House Sale Questions
Aug 23rd 2006, 4:28 pm
#1
Forum Regular
Thread Starter
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 57
457 LAFHA, UK Mortgage or House Sale Questions
Hi
After much effort and stress I am hopefully going to be getting a job offer through for a four year 457 sponsored position in Perth and am starting to do all the sums, pros and cons etc at the moment
In my discussions so far with the employer they advised that there was a big benefit to be had from the LAFHA benefit which sounded great..
However, the background is that we would ideally like to keep our UK property as a safeguard for a while and rent it out and therefore get LAFHA.
On checking with my mortgage lender today they said they will let people rent out there property for a couple of years but that I would have to change to a buy to let for longer.. As I am changing employers and may not come back though they seemed less inclined to help!
Therefore sounding like I either need to to get a buy to let mortgage elsewhere (and have to pay my fixed rate penalty) or sell the house and pay my fixed rate penanly and lose the safeguard, get kicked off UK housing ladder etc
The crux of my question though would be that if I did sell the house would I then lose the LAFHA?
Thanks in advance for any help on this subject..
Best Regards
James
After much effort and stress I am hopefully going to be getting a job offer through for a four year 457 sponsored position in Perth and am starting to do all the sums, pros and cons etc at the moment
In my discussions so far with the employer they advised that there was a big benefit to be had from the LAFHA benefit which sounded great..
However, the background is that we would ideally like to keep our UK property as a safeguard for a while and rent it out and therefore get LAFHA.
On checking with my mortgage lender today they said they will let people rent out there property for a couple of years but that I would have to change to a buy to let for longer.. As I am changing employers and may not come back though they seemed less inclined to help!
Therefore sounding like I either need to to get a buy to let mortgage elsewhere (and have to pay my fixed rate penalty) or sell the house and pay my fixed rate penanly and lose the safeguard, get kicked off UK housing ladder etc
The crux of my question though would be that if I did sell the house would I then lose the LAFHA?
Thanks in advance for any help on this subject..
Best Regards
James
Aug 23rd 2006, 11:26 pm
#2
Gone Senile Member
Joined: Sep 2001
Location: Sydney
Posts: 3,014
Re: 457 LAFHA, UK Mortgage or House Sale Questions
LAFHA is a strange beast and best worked out with your employer. Selling your house will not exclude you from LAFHA - it is a living away from home allowance, you have to be able to show you intend to return to your original homeland. I had a house in the UK for my first year on LAFHA the arrangements with my company stated that my LAFHA would be reduced by a proportion of the rent I received from letting out the UK house.
Many people sell up when coming over on a temp 457 so it really should not be a problem. But if at any point you show intention to stay in Australia (not even necessarily buying a house here) eg - if you are getting a LAFHA and then submit a PR application at any time your LAFHA should stop as you are showing intention to stay.
Hope this make sense. Do check out more with the company sponsoring you especially if they have assigned a migration agent.
Cheers
Many people sell up when coming over on a temp 457 so it really should not be a problem. But if at any point you show intention to stay in Australia (not even necessarily buying a house here) eg - if you are getting a LAFHA and then submit a PR application at any time your LAFHA should stop as you are showing intention to stay.
Hope this make sense. Do check out more with the company sponsoring you especially if they have assigned a migration agent.
Cheers
