Caveman

With hindsight I should have sorted this out in the UK but.... We moved out to Perth last May and rented out the house in UK. A few months later we bought a house in Perth. The upshot of all this is that we have no mortgage in the UK and a BIG mortgage in Oz, which I understand is bad from a tax point of view. No problem, I thought, I'll just re-mortgage in the UK and transfer the funds here to offset the Ozzie mortgage. However, I've just been on the 'phone to Nationwide who say that it is not their policy to lend to non UK residents, despite the fact that we've been customers of theirs for many years and had our original mortgage with them. Does anyone know if this is general with UK lenders or will some companies lend to non UK residents?

chrispy

Hi,
Sorry i haven't got any answers but would be interested in the responses you get as we may be in the same position in 6 months or so as we are intending to rent out our house when we leave for Aus and maybe buy in Aus with a mortgage. I was thinking about re-mortgaging before we leave but we have the option to have some of our salary 'packaged' in Australia which should offset the higher interest rates in Aus. What are the are the tax issues you refer to as being an issue?
You would have thought that with the house as collateral and you being able to pay the mortgage with the income from the rental, it wouldn't be a problem. Nationwide are normally 'friendly' to overseas people (we have just opened bank accounts with them to use while we are in Australia) but they did say we could only have done this while we were still resident in the UK even though they know they are for use in Australia (they will evben send the statements there)..

hope you resolve it... did you keep your house in the UK as an insurence policy? I guess you are also aware of the capital gains tax issues withowning two homes?

Cheers

Poppy 2

We have a buy to let mortgage in the UK and the reduced rate period runs out in 2 years. The mortgage broker I used said no problem, give me a call and I'll find another one for you and that he'd sort it whilst we are still in Oz. He's a really good guy and really does shop around for the best kind of mortgage and best deals for you. Not sure if its because I'm already a client that he can do it, but he's worth giving a call and he's really helpful.

If you PM me, I'll give you his numbers. I haven't got his email address as its on another computer.

Cheers

Poppy 2

I've found his email address, so if you want to PM me for that.

Caveman

The tax issues, as far as I understand them , are that if I have a mortgage on a house that's being let I can offset the interest component of the repayments against the rental income and only pay tax on the difference.