AM

Hi All,

My wife and I are moving to New Zealand in Jan. We've decided to keep our UK residence as an investment (and security) but I'm intrigued to know what other people have done.

Apart from the obvious hassle of having strangers letting your home, has anyone walked into any 'Bear traps' that they wished they could have avoided (e.g. hidden taxes, difficulty getting 2nd mortgages) ?

I've started a poll for interest.

Cheers,

Al

Don

If you see a good capital value increase over the years, NZ is a good place to have tax residency as there's no CGT and provided you stay non-UK resident for 5 tax years there'd be none to pay there either. One bear trap would be selling it (say) 4 years after you moved to NZ then being tax resident again in UK before the 5 years is up - you'd pay CGT in the UK on the proportion (of your ownership) the residence was let out.

Other than that, I'd say use an agent every time, you'll pay 10-15% of the rent in fees but it's worth it. Make sure inventry and reference check are done for all tenants.

Be prepared for voids. Maybe average a month a year.

Use Motley Fool www.fool.co.uk as online resource. 2 property boards http://boards.fool.co.uk/Boards.asp?fid=5007, Property - Markets and Trends + Property Investing - Practcal. Both the best it gets.

Cheers - Don

BritboyNZ

WOW! I didn't know that - 5yrs and no CGT? Been gone 2yrs now so only 3 to go...although its anyones guess if the UK property market will be as strong as it is right now.

Cheers for that useful bit of info Don :-)

Don

Forgot to make it clear that you can actually sell the house any time after you become non-tax resident in UK, ie as soon as you become resident in NZ. (You don't have to wait 5 years, then sell it.) It's just that you have to stay away from the UK for 5 complete UK tax years to avoid UK CGT. (The law came in to stop somebody with big CGT potential liability from moving away from the UK for a year to a tax friendly place, selling the assets then moving back to the UK the next year.)

Cheers - Don

AM

Thanks for the replies,

We're due to see some international tax consultants in the next couple of weeks so we'll cover this one off.

If it doesn't baffle me too much I'll feed back on this thread.

Cheers,

Al

Black Sheep

Yes, please do! We're in similar situation, though in USA (which is why we haven't joined your poll!) and are always grateful for any information/experience others are able to pass on.

TA!