Tumbi

Hello, new here so please be gentle. I am an Aussie married to an English girl. Her parents visit every 2 years or so and they love it. On their last visit, they spoke about buying a house here so they could come and stay for a few months each year.

So with that in mind, I guess there would be a few ways of doing it:

1. Buy the house themselves outright and have them listed as the owners.

2. Have their daughter "purchase" the house in her name with them "donate" the money to her so she can buy the house and then she looks assumes the ownership with any tax breaks, etc.

3. Have the house in both my wife's and my name where we buy the house as an investment property but we do not rent it out. We pay the rates, etc and get any tax breaks as landlords.

4. Any other options?

Each option would have implications, rules that you would need to adhere to, etc.

Has anyone got any advice on the way to go about this? Has anyone heard of someone else doing something similar?

Obviously any advice given would be a taken into consideration prior to doing anything official so please be as forthcoming as you can.

Thanks for your help,

John

Geelong Gent

John

Consider:

Once you purchase you no longer can claim the first home buyers grant. This also includes if your wife or defacto has already bought.

A property you do not live in ie holiday home is subject to land tax (% on last council valuation). Until this year there was a freeze on but this has now been lifted - so unknown quantity on what this value could be in future - very unlikely to go down.

Stamp duty is very high - have you considered instead a bigger home with granny flat included - that way you have seperate space but (can use it yourselves when they are not).

If they want to come for long stretches will they not also be requiring a motor car? if so keeping it at your house means you could turn it over reqularly without having to go to far out of your way?

FIRB approval is required for non Australian or non PR (and certain temporary visa categories). This approval does require the house to be of your main residence (ie where you reside - dont risk living somewhere else and calling a beach house you main residence - they can make you sell & not with a nice few months selling campaign more like 1 weeks notice in the paper and take it or leave it scenerio.

Petals

Has your wife got sisters and brothers if so there are estate implications.

Do you want to look after an extra property, lawns etc and have you the time.

Insurance is a problem if the property is vacant most insurance companies will not insure property that is left vacant a lot of the time.

Even though you are all honky dory now what if you are not in the future.

None of us have a crystal ball to know what is in the future so do what is best for you and yours.

Tumbi

We are not eligible for the first time grant as we have our home in both our names.

As for the future, who knows what will happen but nothing is likely to....There is no way anything like this would be contested from my side, I am not that kind of person.

The other points from GG are interesting though, they would need to be considered. As for buying a bigger house with a granny flat that would cost us a lot more money so the not really an option at this stage. A separate house would be the way to go simply for buying and selling point of view.

Thanks and any more advice is welcomed.

JL

Rossi

I think that if you can't prove to the ATO that it's rented you don't get the tax breaks........... you can't be a landlord without tenants ;-)