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To sell or not to sell!!

To sell or not to sell!!

Old Dec 30th 2006, 12:30 pm
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Default To sell or not to sell!!

We are in the process of applying for 136 MODL visas and are Septemeber 2006 applicants. We hope to move to Brisbane around August 2007. Can anyone offer advice as whether to sell our home in the Uk or rent it out and rent in Brisbane until we are sure that this is what we want or bite the bullet and sell up in the Uk and buy over there?

Comments on others experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rutledge family.
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Old Dec 30th 2006, 12:52 pm
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Hi Janet no advice from me -sorry. I am in the same position. Our 136 application was lodged in May 06. We are hoping to be in Brisbane by June 07 but like you unsure what to do with the house. I think there is pro's and con's of both renting/selling. Jury is still out on this one I'm afraid. Sorry I'm no help. Donna
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Old Dec 30th 2006, 10:05 pm
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by Janet Rutledge
We are in the process of applying for 136 MODL visas and are Septemeber 2006 applicants. We hope to move to Brisbane around August 2007. Can anyone offer advice as whether to sell our home in the Uk or rent it out and rent in Brisbane until we are sure that this is what we want or bite the bullet and sell up in the Uk and buy over there?

Comments on others experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rutledge family.

If you can afford to come and still keep your UK house then I would say do it, at least until you know that you are going to settle here. For some this will be as soon as you land, others will take 6 months, a year or longer and some never settle and want to go back.

For us, we needed some of the equity to set up here so we sold, but we still have over half our money sitting in the bank. We are lucky as we love it here and will be buying sometime next year but I wouldn't have dreamt of buying for the first six months just in case
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 3:52 am
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Wink Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by Janet Rutledge
We are in the process of applying for 136 MODL visas and are Septemeber 2006 applicants. We hope to move to Brisbane around August 2007. Can anyone offer advice as whether to sell our home in the Uk or rent it out and rent in Brisbane until we are sure that this is what we want or bite the bullet and sell up in the Uk and buy over there?

Comments on others experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rutledge family.
Not sure what the UK tax implications are, but aren't you only allowed to transfer house proceeds without any OZ tax implications within 6 months of arriving there? After this period aren't they considered as income and taxable?

Worth checking this out before making a decision. May be someone on this site has firm information they can offer.

Regards,
Gillian
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 4:10 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by ray2gill
Not sure what the UK tax implications are, but aren't you only allowed to transfer house proceeds without any OZ tax implications within 6 months of arriving there? After this period aren't they considered as income and taxable?
How on earth can a transfer of your own capital be "income"?
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 4:11 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by Janet Rutledge
We are in the process of applying for 136 MODL visas and are Septemeber 2006 applicants. We hope to move to Brisbane around August 2007. Can anyone offer advice as whether to sell our home in the Uk or rent it out and rent in Brisbane until we are sure that this is what we want or bite the bullet and sell up in the Uk and buy over there?

Comments on others experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rutledge family.
It is a difficult one isn't it?? We didn't sell straight away but that is because we were on a temporary visa. Once we got permanent visas we sold the house. The only thing is that you can't rent it out whilst it is on the market, so it could be empty for ages whilst you sell it. Sorry, not much help am I really?
I do know a friend who said that if they had still had the house in the UK they might not have battled with the homesickness and just returned as it would have been easy to do.
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 4:31 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

DON'T SELL IT!!

Read the Moving Back to the UK forum.

Get it tenant ready, keep the rent as low as you can afford, get yourself a good property management agent (as rare as rocking horse sh*t in my experience) and rent it out.
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 5:54 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

SELL IT!

Bite the bullet and move. If you even think you may want to go back home then don't come in the first place as you will not be in the right frame of mind to make a real go of it.

You will also relieve yourself of all the family crap like " We were always under the impression that you would be coming back because you didn't sell your house".
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 6:26 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by Janet Rutledge
We are in the process of applying for 136 MODL visas and are Septemeber 2006 applicants. We hope to move to Brisbane around August 2007. Can anyone offer advice as whether to sell our home in the Uk or rent it out and rent in Brisbane until we are sure that this is what we want or bite the bullet and sell up in the Uk and buy over there?

Comments on others experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rutledge family.
Personally id rent it out as this takes a bit of the pressure off moving and waiting for house sale to go through.

See if you like it in oz and then youve only got a few grand out of pocket expenses to get back to the uk.

As said previous, if you can afford to but a few cant as they need the money for the bond.

Renting in oz- the landlord pays your council tax andx somethin else like building insurance by law- i think(check or confirm someone pls)

Income from the house can be taxable but if you do "running repairs" while you are in Autralia in order to get it up to better than nice for sale then you can write off most of profits this way. Its a pittance anyway what you will be left e=th so just keep it in a uk account to pay for repairs etc.

We had an agent do a full service and were great while we were on a 6 month rtw trip and never had any probs and woulgnt hesitate to use one again, all personal choice as we were in a nice village in cheshire at the time.
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 6:52 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

We sold as we needed the equity to afford to come. Also even if we did decide to return to the UK there's no way we'd want to go back to where our house was (Crewe). I know a lot of people say don't esp on MBTHUK forum but to be honest I've heard enough horror stories from landlords who've rented their houses out to make me think that it's not as simple as all that.

I would agree that it makes sense to rent here first rather than rush into buying anywhere. We've got a years rental and hope to buy after that (though I'll probably be happy to rent for longer if need be). That gives us time to decide where we'd like to settle

At the end of the day it's your call. For us it was 100% the right decision. If we had a home back in the UK I think we'd be too half hearted about making a go of things here. As it is we don't have the worry of paying a mortgage back home and whether there are any problems with it when we're 12000 miles away. It's no longer our responsibility and for me that's a huge relief and we can get on with living out here
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 8:11 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Before we came out I was desperate to sell as I wanted to buy in Oz. We did get a buyer out of blue without even having it on the market (a neighbours friend) but it all fell through. I was gutted although my hubby wasn't so gutted because he never really wanted to sell in the first place. Anyway, we didn't have the time to find another buyer so we rented it out to a friend who we could trust. When we first arrived in Oz, I was sure that I wanted to stay here forever. It was beautiful and clean and I just couldn't see any reason that would drag me back to the UK. However, after 6 months , although I still really love it here I now think that I would like to return to the UK in a few years. I am now so glad that we kept our house - I am not having to stress about keeping up with the UK property prices and I have not had the expense of selling my UK home and buying an Oz home. If I had sold only to return to the UK, I would have had the expense of selling 2 homes and buying 2 homes - a lot of money down the drain. I would strongly advise you to keep hold of your UK property until you know whether you want to stay for good unless you don't mind the risk of losing a lot of money. I don't think anyone can really know whether they would want to stay forever until they have been here for a good few years. We rent a lovely house and it's great because if anything goes wrong, I don;t have to foot the bill - although obviously I do have to foot the bill for the UK property but that's OK because I've got my trusted workmen to do the work and I know I'm not going to be ripped off.
So to summarise, I would advise to keep the UK property. It hasn't made me feel any less settled here and I don't have the stress of wondering whether I have burnt my bridges. I can make an informed decision after we have been here for a while.
Hope this helps.
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 8:28 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by Janet Rutledge
We are in the process of applying for 136 MODL visas and are Septemeber 2006 applicants. We hope to move to Brisbane around August 2007. Can anyone offer advice as whether to sell our home in the Uk or rent it out and rent in Brisbane until we are sure that this is what we want or bite the bullet and sell up in the Uk and buy over there?

Comments on others experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks Rutledge family.
If we had kept the house, my OH wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes. Sell it, use the cash to make the transition easier and work wholeheartedly at making Aus work for you. Keep the house and you've always got a reason for jumping on the plane the minute the going gets rough
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 8:36 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by ray2gill
Not sure what the UK tax implications are, but aren't you only allowed to transfer house proceeds without any OZ tax implications within 6 months of arriving there? After this period aren't they considered as income and taxable?

Worth checking this out before making a decision. May be someone on this site has firm information they can offer.

Regards,
Gillian
Quick disclaimer: this is how i personally understand tax on your home proceeds to work - but please dont take my word for it - please check yourself!!

The transfer of funds does not have tax implications - the transfer of 'gains' on those funds does. However this is slightly different on funds from the sale of a house that was a family home. As long as you are renting in Oz you have much longer (6 years i think) to transfer you home sale funds - but this is only until you buy somewhere else. Once you buy property in Oz you old house is no longer classed as your family home and you will again be looking at tax implications for value gains.

Tiggs
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 8:40 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

I guess it all depends on what sort of people you are.

If you're the type like some on this who are 'In for a penny, in for a pound' types, and just want to get here, settle, and enjoy the adventure, and the money will come in handy, sell it.

If you're more cautious types who aren't sure you're going to really settle living here, and you don't need the money, I'd hang on to it and let it out. It's good to have something to go back to and if things don't truly work for you here, then you have something to go back to.

Try and assess what sort of person you are and how safe you want things to be. Only you know the answer to that, and only you can truly decide if you want to sell up or not.

Best wishes for whatever you decide.
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Old Jan 1st 2007, 8:43 am
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Default Re: To sell or not to sell!!

Originally Posted by iPom
I guess it all depends on what sort of people you are.

If you're the type like some on this who are 'In for a penny, in for a pound' types, and just want to get here, settle, and enjoy the adventure, and the money will come in handy, sell it.

If you're more cautious types who aren't sure you're going to really settle living here, and you don't need the money, I'd hang on to it and let it out. It's good to have something to go back to and if things don't truly work for you here, then you have something to go back to.

Try and assess what sort of person you are and how safe you want things to be. Only you know the answer to that, and only you can truly decide if you want to sell up or not.

Best wishes for whatever you decide.
Ipom, why are you always so sensible.
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