For various reasons we are planning to rent out our house in the UK and therefore also need to rent in Oz. The question we are unsure of at the moment is whether to let our house as furnished or unfurnished. This decision will partly be influenced by the state of play in Oz ie. is most property for rent (family house size) furnished or unfurnished?

On a separate note, we have had police checks cleared and have medicals booked for two weeks time - based on the experience of all you wise people out there is it OK to start getting excited yet? Does this mean the visas are as good as confirmed?? (providing nothing is revealed during the medicals). I'm getting so tired of these yes/no/maybe days.

from what I've been told rental properties in Aus are UNFURNISHED big time.

badgers

one consideration of renting out a furnished house is say an old sofa may not met the fire & safety regulations required. On the other hand it depends how much you cherish your belongings - is that nice £3k cream sofa the tenents don't care about and the red wine/baby sick/dog smells that sofa may acquire.

another consideration, the tax implications.

gotta go now

Rental properties are unfurnished and they may even take the sink plugs.

The kitchen tends to have oven/hob/dishwasher.

You can rent furniture.

If you are going to Perth and need short term rental of furnished property until your shipment arrives take a look at www.pelicanpals.co.uk

Hi there
We are renting in OZ at the moment , and as the other posts say, most if not all rentals over here do come unfurnished.

The other thing to take into consideration when renting out your house in Uk is i think (you'll have to check on this) if you rent a house unfurnished in the UK the tenant as more rights than in a furnished house and maybe more difficult to evict if nessasery.

As for your last point, if all goes well with medicals and police checks then yes it is time to get excited.

P.S
Don't be afraid to ask the doctor when having your medicals
if everything is ok. Other than blood test results he should be able to put your mind at ease.

Good luck

debbie jo

Apparently, the rights of the tennant do not alter in respect of furnished/unfurnished. I asked the estate agent this when they were quoting rental on our property.

We plan to travel light & sell most of the big items we own and store small items in our loft. We're going to then rent furniture on our arrivel (FURNITURE RENTAL NUMBERS FOR GOOD COMPANIES IN MELBOURNE WOULD BE APPRECIATED). We can then move around Oz if work is better in another state or we don't like a certain area.

One of the agents said that it's easier for people to move on from a rented property if it's offered fully furnished as they don't have the hassle of moving their stuff in/out. Plus, as previously stated any furniture left has to meet fire regulations approval.

We were quoted between £3-£3,500 to ship a container over which is probably worth more than our funiture. It takes approx 12-14wks to get to Oz.

I've also heard that some airways give you double baggage allowance if they know you're emigrating and travelling one way (but haven't checked out if this is true yet)

I would suggest you get at least 3 estate agents round to get a good idea of what rental to charge tennants. You don't want to overcharge and end up with no tennants. You can also take out an insurance with the estate agent in the event of evicting tennants & arrears or input a clause of one months notice if you don't like the tennants into the tennancy agreement....

Hope this helps a bit...

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Caroline G
I've also heard that some airways give you double baggage allowance if they know you're emigrating and travelling one way (but haven't checked out if this is true yet)

Its true that you get double baggage allowance if flying one way,have been confirming that with airlines this morning, it does depend to some degree on your visa though, we are eligible but my parents who have a retirement visa are not!

mcmercer

Have you got any contacts for short term rentals in Sydney at all???

Thanks,

C.

mcmercer

Thanks for that info. We applied for the skilled migrant visa and presume under that one we can bring double. It's a bit cruel to not let people with retirement visas bring in the same amount. I wonder what their reasoning is for that decision

CarolineG

Just had a thought!

Maybe it's to prevent to much chintz being taken into the country.....

We were cautiously optomistic at this point - It still took 5 months to get the PR visas through, and it wasn't until the 'orange' envelope arrived that we got excited (and scared, and confused etc etc)

K

Hi,
I'm in a similar position in that my house back in the Uk is being leased and I'm renting an unfurnished property here. I found very few decent furnished flats at the time I was looking but have been able to furnish relatively cheaply (and much cheaper than renting over a 6-12 month period). SuperAmart have cheap stuff, but best to have it all delivered in one go to keep the price down. Not having transport, I found secondhand shops/ looking in the local paper a bit tricky.


There are various tax implications about leaving furniture in your UK home, in particular the rules in the UK and Oz are different from what I've gathered from the IR/ATO websites...

For example in UK if furrnished you can claim a wear and tear allowance of 10% of monthly rent regardless of what's in there.

Here you have to work out a figure for each item individually (!!!) according to how old it is, the cost new and how much it has depreciated in that time and how long the Oz government expect it to last. A major pain but probably worth it to reduce the tax bill. Also be aware that replacing broken items such as cooker/boiler etc (even if it'd be cheaper than fixing) is not tax deductible in Oz, nor is doing a bit of painting to attract a tenant. (but it's OK once they've moved in...) The rules are much more attractive in the UK.

It all adds up 'cos if you're an Oz resident
you'll have to pay tax both in UK and Oz on the rental income, though you'll get a tax credit in Oz for any UK tax paid.

TC

If you haven't seen it already ...

Best regards.