rabsody

The house next door to us is up for 'express sale' and it is going for a steal. My mum who is resident in UK is considering buying it and letting it out and then she can also come and stay for six months at a time when she comes to visit if it's not being leased. Further down the track we could possibly sell both blocks of land and get DA approval for units, depending on how the area develops.

Does anyone have any experience of owning an investment property in Aus from UK? Do the tax benefits still apply if you are non-resident/non-citizen? Any advice, musings or sheer ancedotal waffle would be much appreciated!

LouiseR

I thought you weren't allowed to buy a house in Australia unless you were a permanent resident?

rabsody

This is all the stuff I don't know you see!

Centurion

In short you can't with approval from the FIRB http://www.firb.gov.au/content/real_estate.asp

Otherwise only a PR or citizen may own property.

the dooners

hi there
if your not a resident you must apply to FIRB for permission and it has to be a plot or a brand new property that no one has stayed in.
to the best off my knowledge

the dooners

DrWho

Nothing to stop your Mum giving/lending you the money to do it in your name though...

ozzieeagle

I'm curious about this as well. Can my Daughter an Aussie born and bred, now living in the UK do this.

Problems I see are.... Getting a Aussie bank loan
Transferring money to and from the UK.... for maintenance and short fall in rent
Possibility of getting first home owners grant @ 21,000 bucks for a new property.

If anyone can shed light on the above I would be very grateful.... especially the sending money back and forth.

julesandco

I think if it's land you are buying, you have to start building within a twelve month time frame as part of the FIRB approval. Or it has to be a new property (as mentioned above).

We bought land after a reccie visit and arranged the FIRB and a mortgage remotely from the UK. We set up a bank account whilst we were here and applied for a mortgage once we returned home. Then we simply transferred a sum of money over to cover a period's mortgage repayments.

They do calculate the mortgage amount you can borrow differently here though; we had a fair amount of credit available in the UK as we had a great credit rating, however, this is seen as a minus rather than a plus (i.e. amount of available debt!), also they reduce the amount you can borrow if you have children, less for each child as the cost of living would be greater for a larger family. All very sensible, but a bit of a shock if you're not used to it.

So, it CAN be done, but nothing's ever easy

As the DR says, can't you do it in your name? Would probably be more simple.

Good luck.

Jules x

Centurion

If you put the property in your name be very wary. You will then own two homes and will incur capital gains etc on sale etc. You can buy it as a nominee for a relative but that has to be specified on the contract at the time of purchase.