Short answer is ‘no’, Well you could do it, but no tax advantage.

But you should seek legal advice asap as there may be some strategies available before the estate is finalised – avoid CGT and stamp duty possibly.

Seek legal advice about the possibility of terminating the contracts

It depend son your definition of ‘paid off’

There are 2 possibilities

A. Loan balance of say $400,000 with $400,000 cash in the offset account

B. Loan balance of $0 with an offset account (which offsets nothing)

With Option A the property isn’t paid off, but the loan is fully offset. If the cash in the offset is you personal cash, and not…[Read more]

Before spending up big like that it may be worthile spending a whole day reading up as much as you can about options. Then if you decide to do the course more of it will sink in.

Best not to park borrowed money in an offset because the interest may not be deductible when used.

If the $270k loan relates to the property purchase the interest on this may be deductible when she rents this out.

I specialise in structuring from a tax, law and loan aspects and run two businesses –
Structuring lawyers
Loan Structuring Pty Ltd

You should avoid cross in 99% of cases as there is no benefits to you.

But with 5 years to retirement you should avoid it even more. Get them uncross whenever possible.

Imagine you are nicely retired and decided to sell one property so as to get more expenses to live on. You find a buy and sell and after paying out the loan you will have say…[Read more]

It pays to do you own research doesn’t it.

Generally not.

But the contract may be defective in some way which could allow this. Best to seek legal advice.

In some states the first mortgagee needs to consent to a second mortgage bring lodged, in other states no consent will be needed.
Most major lenders will consent, but they want all parties to enter into a deed of priority so that they can be sure they will come first. I am not sure if they can refuse consent or not, but contractlly you are…[Read more]

You won’t be able to settle (if mortgaging) until the caveats are removed.

What does your solicitor say?

Refinancing may not be an option if the values have dropped. If the LVRs are still adequate it may be your best option however as you can start a new fresh IO term and also extend the total loan term to 30 years which will make the minimum PI payments lower when it does revert. but you will have to service to do this.

I charge $2750 including GST and ASIC fees to set up a trust with a corporate trustee. This includes legal advice on the structuring of the company and customising of the trust to suit your needs. Also advice on how to operate the trust so as to make sure there is asset protection against creditors. Also advice on asset protection in death and…[Read more]

– And they have the ability to transfer the units of the trust into their SMSF later on – perhaps when the property is cashflow positive.

I helped a client in a similar situation.

They had a fully paid off main residence worth $1.2mil. They bought a new main residence for $1.2mil and had to borrow about $1mil to purchase it. That meant about $50k per year in non deductible debt while they were also paying tax on the $30k positve cashflow of the existing property.

Solution was that…[Read more]

moving money around between loans won’t increase deductions, but it will result in a mixed loan and may actually decrease teh amount of interest you can claim.

Seek tax advice.

Joint owners are considered one owner for land tax purposes in NSW, so they don’t get one threshild each but a combined one.

Then if they own other property on their own their share of the joint property is taken into account so that they are not double taxed.

It is all very confusing.

This is why 2 people owning a few properties in in NSW will…[Read more]

If you enter an option agreement you would have an interest in the property and could seek out buyers of it.

Yes you could do that.

if you do this without a solicitor you will get into trouble.

Under state law a residential lease has a minimum term of 6 months…The solicitor doing your conveyancing should be able to assist with a licence to occupy for a little bit more than you are paying for the conveyancing.

That would form part of your costbase.

To work out the cost base we need to know the costs for the 5 elements described under Section 110-25 of the ITAA 1997 which are:

1. Money paid or required to be paid for the asset.

2. Incidental costs of acquiring the asset, or costs in relation to the CGT event, for example, stamp duty, legal fees, tax…[Read more]