cazb1

Hi, have just joined forum and hoping to find some advice. We are moving to oz in September and with the current strength of the oz dollar we don't know whether to sell up or keep house and rent it out until dollar goes down. Also, if we leave the country and keep our house rented will we get hit by capital gains or similar tax? Welcome any advice. Carolyn

Bermudashorts

Hi Caz

Welcome to BE. My husband and I have been contemplating this very issue recently, we decided to rent out the UK house for the time being. We hope in the meantime either the house will recover in value a little or the GBP will, or both. It also is a safety net for us, should things not work out downunder.

You certainly won't be hit by capital gains tax if you start to rent out your house, but likely to be income tax to pay on the rental income. If you are overseas for over five years then you would never pay CGT when you come to sell, but if you returned to the UK within five years for any reason then there could be some. But you would have to make a pretty substantial profit for UK CGT to kick in.

HMRC are not completely unreasonable about this, you don't become liable to CGT on a house you have owned and lived in for X years just because you moved out a few years before you sell it.

If you buy in Australia before you sell in UK, I believe you would become liable for Australian CGT upon selling your UK house, so watch out for that.

Good luck with your move.

JAJ

As a matter of principle, you only get "hit" by CGT if you make profits.

There is a wiki discussion on the issues to consider:
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/House_in_UK-Keep_or_Sell

glennmatchett

Hello I was interested in this post because we are planning on moving over in October but as the market here is not great we are thinking of keeping the house.

if any one has anymore info or has done this Iw ould be intereseted to know. I did find this artical online it might be of some use?

http://www.shelteroffshore.com/index...e-abroad-10781

Bermudashorts

There are lots of threads on this topic. Was there something specific you want to know?

glennmatchett

Thanks Bermudashorts,
Not so much something specific, I will do some more searching but really it is the tax side of things, will it be worth having to pay tax on the rental income or just try and sell it at a reduced cost and put the money into some bank account in the UK that has a tie in for say a few years so that we might get a high rate of interest on it.

darrellandsarah

we came over in october 2008.we rented our house in cornwall out as a safety net just in case.anyway we have just sold it[for full asking and only on the market for 1 week]what we had was it ended up costing us money just to keep the house.rental damage that needed fixing/maintance cost/plus its a taxable uncome over here.
its also a guessing game as is it worth hanging on for a better exchange rate whilst watching the excallating house prices over here

glennmatchett

Thanks for the reply darrellandsarah,

that is my worry we live in an old victorian terrace so it is a bit of a worry..... but at the end of the day it is close to train line for london so ideal for a commuter but it is just not getting any serious offers for the purchase price... the agent does not know that we are going to OZ as I dont want them to let perspective buys know and then they try and get it for even less

darrellandsarah

personally i,d do what we did.rent it out.we rented to the cornish council on the home finder scheme.quaranteed rent whether its vacant or not.then see how you go.when you do your taxes over here be a bit imaginative and the taxable income becomes nil,so no tax to pay on rental income.all the best darrell