Advice required on structuring of IP loans

Hi all,

I am seeking any advice which may help us move on with our property portfolio as we have come to a bit of a standstill mostly due to cashflow due to our current property structure.  My husband and I both have property which we have seperately bought to the marriage.  I have one IP in Kalgoorlie, WA and my husband has 5 IP's in WA plus our PPOR.  Our first issue is our structure as we have tended to purchase properties, live in them for a year whilst renovating, then rent out.  But we are fully aware that for us to move ahead, having our PPOR with the largest mortgage really affects our cashflow.  My husband has 2 IP's which are almost fully paid off and therefore extremely positive geared, which doesn't help with his tax (which we really need as he is in the highest tax bracket with working in the mines income).  The reason these two properties are almost paid off is that my husband was thinking each time that they would be his primary residence, but situations change.  Tax law doesn't allow us to now re-mortgage these properties, and we don't want to move back into them because we now have kids and won't all fit in these properties.  And even if there was a way to transfer the large mortgage from one property to another, there would be no point as we would just be stuck with the same problem when we move out of our current PPOR in a year's time.  Surely there are many investors out there in a similar situation?  Have you any pearls of wisdom to help us muddle through this?  

The second issue is that we have kept all our properties seperate in regards to names on the title, mortgages etc.  We have looked at putting both our names on the title of all the properties, but this costs an average of $4000 in stamp duty and solicitors fees per property.  In our current situation, it is beneficial to have most of the properties in my husband's name because he is the high income earner and it can offset his tax.  I used to be a high income earner but am now a stay at home mum on zilch income.  Hence the difficulty when I needed to borrow $30,000 for urgent renovations to my IP in Kalgoorlie.  Because I have no income, I could not get a loan variation increase, we don't think we are willing to pay $4000 to put my husband's name on the title and subsequent mortgage so the loan can be approved.  He has had to take out a personal loan for the repairs to my property.  God only knows how that is going to go at accounting time!?  I know that it is important to have the structure correct from the beginning for a successful property portfolio, but we are unsure whether to take a short term approach to this and keep most in husband's name for our current tax situation, or whether we should be taking a more long term view (hopefully I will be returning to a high income in the next few years), and combine all our properties as tenants in common.