They are not accounting structures but legal structures really.  A trust is not a separate entity but a legal arrangement where a trustee owns property on behalf of beneficiaries. For tax purposes trusts are treated as separate entities so a trustee buying a property is ignored and the trust is assessed on the property. Therefore from a tax angle it doesn't matter whether the trustee is a person or a company as the tax consequences are the same. ie any losses would still be attributed to the trust.

BTW, there is no way you would want to use a company to own property.

In that case a third party wouldn't probaby be a beneficiary of your trust so you would have to transfer part of your business to them. In NSW this would involve stamp duty. You would also be up for CGT if there was a profit. Then you have to factor in what do they get for their money, how do you compensate yourselfs for working extra if they won't be working in the business. An investor will probably want to pay so much as they would recouperate their injection within 1 to 2 years.

Watch out for disputes. make sure you have a written agreement on how to resolve these. He may accuse you of playing down figures etc.

What if he wants out, divorces, or goes bankrupt too? or dies!

If your going to sell then maybe a discretionary trust would be good. Could use the same trustee as the unit trust or personal trustee.

This way any profit could be flexibly distributed – including to the unit trust if need be – to off any losses and save tax.

Most signatures evolve over time.

There is no register of signatures and you could change yours at any time. This doesn't affect any contracts entered into as you would still be the same person – generally speaking.

That changes things The cost base will be the market value at the date of death.

yes, probably should get a valuation as of the date it ceased to be your main residence.

Thanks

here is the link

http://itunes.apple.com/au/app/commercial-property-made-easy/id541510448?mt=8

The legislation says

"118-145(4)  If you make the choice, you cannot treat any other * dwelling as your main residence while you apply this section, except if section 118-140 (about changing main residences) applies."

So you cannot treat the first house as your main residence if you treated your house overseas or the one in QLD as your main residence during the same period.

You will have to substantiate why it owuld be deductible. Possibly it could relate to expenses incurred in producing an assessible income.

Yes, it wont help with the finance, but if you were running a sheep farm it might be treated differently to a non-income producing house on land.