I think your parents should see a lawyer. especially for the mortgage. They must be registered at the land titles office .

For asset protection the best trust is a discretionary trust.

But you will need some proper advice – eg. transferring your home into a trust will result in :
 – less asset protection
 – Stamp duty
 – Loss of the main residence CGT exemption
 – potential tax issues if you live in it
 – potential legal issues if you live in it
 – possibly, or probably more land tax

When a trust is involved finance is just about the same as per normal. But when a company is involved things can get harder and/or more restrictive. Having a company will provide added asset protection – as a trustee's personal assets are at risk if they are sued, and it will make things more flexible in the future – but finance will be harder.

Trusts don't require much maintenance. You will need separate bank accounts and to treat them and their income and expenses as separate to yourself. Will also need to get an ABN, TFN and file tax returns, for the trust and company – and pay ASIC fees for a company.

Yes you could do that. It is just substituting the security of the loan.

Yes it is possible.

If it is your company then you need to be careful. There are some legal and tax ramifications.

The company is not you even if you are the sole director and shareholder. The director has a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the company so you would probably need to charge yourself market rent for example. Same from a tax perspective. You may also have FBT issues if the company is providing an employee with accomodation etc.

They don't like third parties cause it can get messy if they have to reposses the property.

All persons giving the guarantee or going on the loan will have to pass the serviceability assessment of the lenders too.

There are many things to consider here, no just the asset protection aspects. Firstly you will probably want a company as trustee for a trust. The trustee is the legal owner and its name goes on title. If one of the 6 wants out, title deeds can remain the same. If you had 6 names on title, then it would be a nightmare. secondly, you should use a trust because of the 50% CGT is not available to companies. Having a discretionary trustee is good because it is the most flexible structure, but the trustee of the discretionary trust has absolute discretion on how to distribute income, so it may not be good to have it this way with separate families involved.  So you could look at each family using a unit trust. This way the trustee would pay equal shares to each unit holder (or % as agreed upon in setting up). Each family could hold the units of the unit trust in their own names or in a company or in a discretionary trust (DT). A DT would be more flexiable and save tax. There are other considerations too. Trusts are not completely safe from the Family Law Courts. You should consider borrowing issues. Having a company as trustee will make it difficult to borrow. Then the banks will want guarantees from every person involved or mentioned in the trust or company. Letting too many people guarantee will expose you unnecessarily. It will also hurt future borrowing ability. So it may be better to try to minimize this by only allowing 1 person from each family to go as a unit holder/shareholder etc. The other person will still be a beneficiary if a discretionary trust is used to hold the units. Then there is the question of who will be director. Directors take risks so it is best to have just 1 if you can. There is also land tax considerations. This will vary from state to state, but in NSW if you use a trust there is no land tax free threshold. This means you will pay land tax on the land no matter what value it is, whereas if held in personal names you would each get $357,000 in land land tax free – in addition to your main residence. Land tax is 1.7% in NSW so this is a significant factor to consider. There are also issues relating to flexibility in adding or removing people’s involvement. Stamp duty issues, CGT issues, borrowing issues etc all need to be considered. Another issue is set up and running costs. Each company, trust and individual will need tax returns done. Companies will also need annual ASIC fees of around $212. Set up for a company is about $500 and  a trust about $1000. you will also need to pay stamp duty on the trust deed in many states – it is about $550 in NSW now. So this all adds up/ There is no one structure which will give you everything, so you have to compromise in some areas to gain in others.    

A trust is not really an entity. The trustee of the trust is the legal owner of the property and so the title goes in their name – a personal name or a company – or a combination.

Simplying refinancing and increasing a loan will not do since deductibility depends on the use the borrowed funds were put to.

One spouse buing out another generally works well, but the benefits will depend on what state your property is in. Some states allow spouses to transfer title between themselves without stamp duty – but may states impose conditions such as the property to be the main residence in the future. I think Vic allows the transfer of an investment property between spouses without stamp duty.

But you should also asses future tax deductibility because there may be little benefit, initially, of a non working spouse borrowing to buy out the half share of the other partner – they may have a negative geared property without an income, so no tax would be payable.

You should also be wary about entering the transation with the aim of just saving tax .

If you are doing it as a business then you may not be entitled to the main residence CGT exemption at all = CGT or income tax on your main residence. But you are likely to be able to argue you are not doing it as a business for the first few.

Thereafter you should consider using a discretionary trust to purchase the properties. This will allow the greatest flexibility in minimising tax. But you should also consider the downsides – such as possibly more land tax (eg in NSW)

I have a property in Japan in Osaka. It is true that properties lose value there – it is like buying a new car. As soon as you live in it the value drops. The construction there does not seem to be duriable either. Also, generally, prices have been declining since 1990. A few years ago there was news that prices had risen by 0.10%. Not sure if this trend has continued or not.

I think the yields can be very high there, but it will be difficult for you to borrow. Even for a Japanese citizen or permanent resident it is not easy to borrow for an investment property. I personally would only stick to Australia to invest in property.