Hi All,
Just got a call from members alliance. This thread has been an interesting read.
One point that he kept bring up was something about putting your tax dollars back into your mortgage and hence reducing the time it will take you to pay off your loan by "up to 75%". Can anyone explain what tax law he is referring to here?
Cheers,
Joel.
Hi Joel,
Without more information it is difficult to respond with any degree of certainty to your question. Some more information would be useful.
Some companies suggest investors put all of their rent into their own mortgage and then let the interest on IP loan capitalise.
The ATO disallowed this strategy sometime ago – a read of the Harts case will enlighten you on this one. In effect the Harts lost their case because the intent was to avoid tax (this structure was market as a tax reduction system) and thus they got pinged under Part IV of the tax act.
The original Harts Case was lost on intent – since then a number of people used 'other reasons' to set up similar structures. Earlier this year the ATO again ruled against this strategy. The ruling also extended to structures where rental income was placed in offset accounts and/or lines of credit and swept at the end of each month in order to hasten t he paying down of any home loans.
Not an accountant so you would need to check this with an accountant – or wait for one to come along here.
If you do go back to MA make sure you get your consultant to detail what exactly they are proposing. I might add it would be interesting to note whether or not your consultant is a qualified tax advisor.
Hi
I went to a presentation about 5 weeks ago in Brisbane with MA and they called me last week to see what I was doing as declined to go any further on the day of the meeting and would think about it and get third party advise and I gave them the bad news last week when they followed up i.e. "NO THANKS" !! . I found that what they say at the meeting is all pure speculation and not guaranteed in any case. what I found more disturbing is they try and scare you into doing it almost in that if you don’t sign on the day the world will fall in and if you do sign then all will be good for the rest of your life – pressure tactics by smart looking sales man ( I didn’t see any official accreditation on their business cards) who pretend to be your best friends looking out for you when all they want is you $$ to I guess benefit you to some degree if it all goes well ?? but who knows but they take a fair swipe of $$ either way and pattern I see is you take all the risk on your current assets/money, they sell you a property, if it goes bad which they brush aside as unlikely you are left with the debt and they walk away with a nice profit either way… . I should have known when telemarketer called and was saying it is information provided about "Financial advice, tax minimisation" etc etc and the women came out to talk to use, she was vague about the whole thing and ran the same line and we somewhat naively booked a meeting but all it is just investing in a property through them which you can do yourself anyway and cut them out…if you have the inkling and time to research property which is the smart thing to do to…
One other point is you cannot even pick a property and the detail is vague and they brush your question of and say "until you actually commit to it at least with drawing up loans with the banks etc which is very worrying – You don’t know much about it until you are committed ?? I don’t know how anyone could do that who was is right state of mind to be honest !!
All I can say is be extremely wary of these guys and other companies like them when looking at property, do your homework on it, and get third party neutral advise by someone without a vested interest before committing ( especially when they don’t want you to !!) don’t be fooled they will get loads of money from it and I am betting there risk is minimum and yours is great .. It is quite strange on the day that if you don’t commit they start to get subtly aggressive and almost condescending and go on how they have a team of people who have spent days looking at your file and get angry that you don’t agree to sign up because you want to think about investing hundreds of thousands of dollars , putting your home up as equity in it the whole deal and don’t want to rush in it – LOL !!!
We will look at property investing ourselves now as we want to get into it ( hence the meeting with MA) and do our own homework on it and take a measured , thought out approach with neutral advise to this going forward
.
I agree with Jason. Members Alliance is a reputable company and if you fit their criteria, the benefits can be huge. It is not just about Property Investment, though this is the line i have gone down in person and I am very happy with the outcome and the way I will be better set up for retirement. Lets face it most of us are not going to have enough Super and these guys have some very good ways of helping you. What are the key issues? You have got to be prepared to listen to what they say. I had a rep in my house and what she said made a lot of sense. I was fortunate enough to qualify for what they offer due to my career and equity in my home. This allowed them to be able to help me. It is not the same service for every person – what I personally liked about the services is that it was tailored to what I could benefit from and at no stage did I feel pressured. Personally I am glad I took the initial call and listened to the advice. I have spoken to others who are doing a similar thing either with Members Alliance or other similar firms and we all agree that it has been a good move.
Interested to hear form others who are benefiting from the experience.
John Delaney
Whether they are a good thing or a bad thing…hmmm… you decide.
Over 12 months ago (approx oct 2011) i had a guy from Members Alliance sit in my dining room promising everything mentioned here. Home loan paid off in half the time… investment property etc etc… after being flown to their office on the gold coast and shown the IP they had intended for us, we came home and did some homework. We know people from the area in question and they gave us feed back.
We decided to go through with it.
Now as i sit here typing this.. i still have an unfinished IP ( which was started in march… its a single story 4 bedroom ) and every time i call Members Alliance i get a different answer as to what the hold up is…. they promise to call back… but don't hold your breath.
I tried to call the builder direct…they always busy in a meeting and they don't call back either.
One very unhappy customer here
Not sure if everyone here has found it but check out the following link before making your decision:
<moderator: delete personal comment>
Invest wisely!
David Lee
Coming in late to the discussion sounds to me like another marketing group which is just what Qld needs.
Anyway no so called Financial Adviser (And by the way from a quick search i couldnt find anywhere that Members Alliiance were licensed to provide Financial Advice) worth their grain of salt would recommend a Line of Credit especially considering the Tax consequences if you ever rented out your PPOR.
Cheers
Yours in Finance
Richard Taylor | Australia's leading private lender
Wow amazing the number of first time endorsement posts we get from such happy MA customers.
Maybe they have found the Holy grail……… which the rest of us missed.
Cheers
Yours in Finance
Richard Taylor | Australia's leading private lender
Qlds007 wrote:Wow amazing the number of first time endorsement posts we get from such happy MA customers.Maybe they have found the Holy grail……… which the rest of us missed.
Cheers
Yours in Finance
A little bit fishy if you ask me!
Hi,
Last night, person from Member Alliance came to my house and discussed about how I can pay my mortgage faster, how I can retire with big money and how to buy investment property.
He provided all info at high level and asked me and my wife to attend 3 hours presentation in MA office. I am happy what he provided but do not know what will happnen when I go and see expert in MA office.
He siad I do not need to pay anuthing for getting service. I asled then how you get money? He said company gets comission from service provider. I do not care if I pay same amount of money. I mean if I pay $ 400 for buying life insurance directly from service provider and pay same money through MA.
One thing he asked me to pay $ 200 as deposite for attending presentation and it is refundable once I attend the presentation. He insists me to bring my wise with me and ready to provide child care facility and food. So bit wondering how company can afford that ???
I did not provided CSV number and gave wrong card expiry date so if I do not turn up for presentation, company can not chage money.
Personally, I want to attend the presentation and see how it will go. But based on peoples' comment and bad experience, I will make sure that will not sign any paper or commitment for buying property through MA.
Appreciate if any one share their experience
raj.lover82 wrote:Personally, I want to attend the presentation and see how it will go. But based on peoples' comment and bad experience, I will make sure that will not sign any paper or commitment for buying property through MA.
Appreciate if any one share their experience
Hi Raj,
You have already had a few people cite their experiences with MA. Suggest you re-read those comments.
As for your assertion that you wont sign anything let me share an experience I had many years ago with Stamford Lyon.
We live in an out of the way place and get cold called from time to time by various companies so wife and I figured we would go along. The teaser was a copy of one of Jan Somers books (IMO a good read & worth the attendance on the night) which we received if we booked a private consult.
Presentation was standard fare; most die poor, you need lots to live the lifestyle you want, we all pay too much tax, use your tax dollars to buy property, property will set you up, we'll provide all of the services you need and we even have the property for you. We''l even fly you to the GC so you can look around. Interestingly at the seminar we weren't allowed to ask questions – they will be addresses at the home visit.
Home visit comes around and we get down to some details. I give home & mortgage value and income levels and guess what we qualify. Yippee on the road to riches………
Then the salesperson starts crunching some numbers for us. She was pretty quick at numbers – but my strength is numbers and flaws in her numbers became quickly evident so me being me starting asking questions and pointing out the errors of her logic. The response – "That is the we we have been taught to do it."
Anyway we didn't sign up for trip to GC – wanted more time.
For days we got rung up to see if we were flying to GC and you could tell by the change in callers we were getting past up the line and more and more pressue applied as we went. Clearly we were a hard case and some management level (AKA more successful salespeople) were involved.
The pressue was enormous.
Now I don't know anything about MA – this was my experience with Stamford Lyon. Thought you may appreciate what we went through in order to help you make an informed decision.
As a professional in this industry that has had an extensive amount to do with his company, I can advise families to stay away from Members Alliance.
It is very hard to begin with the list of negatives as a novel could be easily produced. most importantly in any financial planning business, or businesses claiming to provide financial advice, is to act in the best interest of a client. This company acts in the best interest of themselves and unfortunately has very good processes around deceiving their potential clients. I am not going to go into detail but potential investors should take note of my following quote as their are quite a number of these companies around Australia and legally not a lot can be done by ASIC to put an end to these large operations.
"No investment worth investing in will ever place you in a position where you have to make timely and uneducated decisions. If a claimed professional is 'selling' an investment as opposed to 'showing the facts and figures' relating to your personal circumstances then pen should never be put to paper. This company is aggressive in its approach and has an incoherent understanding of what is sound financial advice"
Let it be known that a large number of financial professionals are actively working to restore this glorious industry and to ultimately have hundreds of these companies close their doors.
Yours,
A reputable Financial Planner
Could smell em a mile away. Found that last post on a scam informer website. Once burnt twice shy. Haha. I agree to meet em to see what they had to say. Research the company and when he rocked up to my residence I just played the game and at the end told him where to go. Haha
Hi
We too had a member's alliance phone call. He is calling back on Monday. I gave him a little information about our financial situation, but didn't want to give him our address.
I told him I have a financial advisor and have a loan broker, and he said great.. then we know you are interested and we can add to your knowledge.
But have since done some research. Members Alliance is registered with ASIC – But as an authorised representative… not too sure what that means. Maybe one person somewhere in Australia is registered and lets the whole mob do his/her financial advising on his/her behalf? https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/RegistrySearch/faces/landing/ProfessionalRegisters.jspx?_adf.ctrl-state=ant8wpcsh_9
And the company below is the current company who works on behalf of them… and oopise… they have their company profiles and phones online. So in the spirit of sharing information… feel free to give them a call if you have been having trouble. For some reason you will need to cut and paste the link into the browser.
http://www.insightinvestments.com.au/adviser_profiles.php
And the previous company only lasted for one financial year… hmmmm sounds suspect to me. And I sure won't be giving out any information and will rely on advisors who make their money on success and good reputation and who are not financially making money other than my up front fee.
Just sat through 45 minutes of airy fairy stuff on debt reduction with Members Alliance.
This was after 2 phone calls saying they would be in the area and free consultation etc. Very HARD SELL
What a waste of time. If we were not prepared to go to the Gold Coast IN PERSON with my wife, they were not interested in looking at my circumstances
This is after i advised them that we were a small business and could not do this.
The only time i have been asked to go to the Gold Coast in person by a business was for Time Share or to participate in a pyramid selling scheme. See a pattern here?
They were unwilling to advise what they could offer me that wasn't already being offered by my accountant, financial advisor or bank. Were not forthcoming on what exactly they were selling or how they made their money.
CAVEAT EMPTOR
Hi I am a new member and only found this site because of an ad on seek. Members Alliance are looking for consultants, so before I even entertain replying I do my homework and google the company and look for any bit of info that sounds like they are dodgy, you see cause I have worked for a number of these outfits since 1998 when line of credit / mortgage reduction schemes started appearing, from my experience this crowd are just the same as all the others in the past , all they are want is a big fat commission by bundling your home loan credit cards personal loans together then sucking all the equity out of your home and sticking you with more debt in the form of an investment property.My advise for what its worth steer clear of anyone who tele markets you with the promise of help to get you out of debt or make you financially better off.
Everything seems going so wrong after we sign up an investment in Queensland recommended by Member Alliance in Perth.
1. We were told that the contract was subject to financial approval but this was not really the case we found out later. So, if we can’t get bank approval, we have to come up the money to buy the house or lose our 10% deposit.
2. The evaluation from bank is 50K under the value that we paid for and just checked the current market for a property in the same complex, this is really the case. Well, this could be outside of Member Alliance control due to the market change despite all the research done by them that were shown to us.
3. When the property was close to settlement, no one actually contacted us for what needed to be done until I sent out numerous emails to chase that up.
4. The real nightmare started after the settlement, where Member Alliance recommended the worst ever property manager, PPI to us. No contacts, no communication, no reply of email and phone call when we tried to check out if the property had a potential tenants. After much attempts to contact them, we were told there were a lot of applications and they were in the process of getting a nice tenant. This went on for a month and my property was vacant for that period of time.
5. Finally, we get a tenants recommended by PPI, well, end of the nightmare, no! The tenants fall behind the rents which PPI promised to follow up. Never happened until we handed our property to a new property manager.
6. End of the nightmare, no! Just told that my landlord insurance has lapsed a few months back because it was sent to PPI. They never made the hand-over well and didn’t even bother just drop me an email telling me payment needs to be paid. Now, my tenants breach the contract, not able to make any claim on loss of rent and malicious damage based on the new insurance policy.
Member Alliance and PPI, you making my investment experience so miserable and please don’t claim how well you will look after your clients!
NLK,
I am so sorry to hear your story. This is not what property investing is really about. If you contact me I will have a look at the market around your investment and see what is really going on. I can do a valuation for you (no charge) and have a look at the rental market there too. Hopefully this will give you some peace of mind.
Good luck and I hope things improve ASAP!
Modernity Investing
Email MeNLK can I recommend also contacting Neil Jenman just do a Google search on him for contact details. He helps people who are in your situation. And writes Articles about dodgy property spruikers.
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