Hi Paul,

that's right, you can only claim for the period of ownership in the year that the work was done – having said that, items under $300 can be claimed at 100% and items under $1,000 can be claimed at 18.75% in the first year (37.5%) in subsequent years. So the first year of claim has some accelerated items making it normally quite a good deduction.

In answer to the 2nd question depreciation can only be claimed for your period of ownership.