Property settlement costs – depends what you mean – capital costs likely
Bank loan costs, = borrowing costs deductible over 5 years (or life of loan if shorter)
Conveyancer costs, = capital cost
Buyers advocate fees…. = Capital costs

capital costs are not deductible, but they can be used to reduce CGT when selling

You need specific legal advice on this.

You are a probably a non-resident for tax purposes. A company must have at least 1 resident director.
A foreign controlled trust may be taxed differently too.
And some states will impose more land tax.

thats it Benny

I lent my one to a client year’s ago and he lost it so I only recently bought another one from ebay!

Benny, I have that book.
It is called “own your Home year’s sooner without making extra repayments” by Gill and Therry

It is the best book that I have ever read on learning about the compounding of interest.

BUT the method described involves using LOCs and anyone implementing the ideas using a LOC would create a tax nightmare.

Fortunately the same ideas can be applied to using an offset account and thereby avoiding the tax issues.

lisabellan wrote:

I’m not sure if it’s a similar thing, but I always use Property A for equity (PPOR) and as I have three properties linked, the bank then links all four together so any and all of the equity can be used across the four. My bank does a master limit which puts them all together and you can sell within this bandwidth. For example, two of my loans were fixed and one wasn’t. I could sell the properties within the fixed period as long as the loans weren’t over the variable’s value. As the variable loan was higher, it covered selling any one of them. Check this is correct before you go with my advice, that was my understanding from my broker.Good luck :)

This is what they call cross collateralising securities – using more than 1 security for 1 loan. Very dangerous and should be avoided.

No you can’t claim depreciation when sold. In fact you will probably have to add back any depreciation claimed (reduce the cost base by the DIV43 claims that you made or could have made = building depreciation).

You can ask, but it may still be worth getting your own as the life of certain assets starts again on purchase

If you renovate you will have receipts so the cost of items can be added to your schedule. If you dispose of items you may be able to scrap them and write off any remaining depreciation claims not otherwise claimed – many depreciation companies will amend your report for no charge in situations like this.

If you have any specific asset protection questions ask away, but I can’t really answer ‘should I’ type questions with something other then ‘it depends’ because it really does depend.

example.
Should I use a trust to buy property in NSW?

This will depend on
– if it is negatively geared
– you have used up your land tax threshold already
– if you are concerned about asset protection
– if you understand the implications on death
– on your family situation
– on your financial situation

For example if you are a business owner and need to give perosnal guarantees for leases etc then you may be at risk of being sued. You now have to consider whether you are willing to pay an extra 1.6% pa in land tax to gain some asset protection. On a $400,000 land value property this would equate to $6,400 per year in land tax which you would not otherwise have. Is asset protection worth paying $6,400 per year for the next 40 years or so?

If not, then there are other options – a company with shares owned by the trustee of a discretionary trust.
Alternatively a property owned by your spouse.
or owned by yourself with a mortgage to a discretionary trust

If you are buying in QLD the same issues don’t arise because a trust gets a separate land tax threshold.

Once you have determined the ownership structure you need to determine the structure of the structure – terms of the trust, who plays what role, planning for death, bankruptcy, insolvency and family law disputes. If a company is involved then you need to determine the structure of hte company.

Once that is done then you need to understand how to fund it – gift or loan the deposit in. Who should be the giftor/lender and who to dcocument this

etc

etc

the property couch podcasts are generally good – but not this one. Best to avoid it.