If your house is worth $420,000 and if you own 50/50 you would have to pay her $210,000 for her share (50%). Borrow $210,000 to do this. Transfer at full market value so you can claim the interest on the loan. Your new loan would be something like $120,000  (your share of the existing loan) plus $210,000 = $330,000 which is 78% LVR.

CGT needs to be considered – wife may be exempt if this was the main residence.

Stamp duty. Generally on the value transfrred unless hte property is in VIC where this may be nil.

Doing this would release about $210,000 in cash into your wife's hands which could be used to pay down the loan on hte new property. Extra interest claimed each year would be about $210,000 x 6% = $14,400

If you sold the house outright you would get $240,00 in your hands after paying out the loan.

This would mean you have another $240,000 which could reduce your new PPOR loan. A loan of $240,000 less would save you about $14,400 per year. in interest.

But you also have to crunch the numbers on buying your wife's share and then property via negative gearing.

If you have funds to build and parents have then why not just enter into a JV agreement and slit the profits accordingly.

You’ve just done it!

Jac, don't know if adverse possession could apply in this case. The person must be in possession of the land for 10-15 years (varies state to state. 10 years in NSW I think) to the exclusion of others. This doesn't appear to be a fence out of alingment but just a fence that will be extended. Any aplication for adverse possession would be complex and very costly.

What could work is to apply for an easement. There is an implied easement which allows the back garage to be accessed. It sounds like all the information was in the contract and the survey, but it wasn't something that stood out.

Don't forget stamp duty in ACT may be deductible against income as the land is lease hold.

See the movie 'end of watch'

A fairy tale…

There could be a pty ltd company as trustee (and should be). Each unit holder could be a separate pty ltd company as trustee for another discretionary trust.

You have to consider who will control the trustee. Who will be director? How many directors, How owns the shares in the trustee company. What happens if a director dies, how will a new director be decided. Probate may take 6 months. Who will be director of each separate trustee company underneath. Will these directors need to give personal guarantees etc?

Careful planning is needed from a tax, legal and finance perspective.

Richard, what do you mean by this? This is not the case from my experience

Why do you already have a trust set up? If this is trading it may not be a good idea to buy property in this same trust.

And I agree with RPI, there is a huge difference between a company and a company acting as trustee.

If you want to transfer the property from the trust to a child there will be stamp duty and CGT, legals, loans to worry about. You could leave the property in the trust and pass on control to the child, once they are over 18 – they could just become the director of the trustee.