Existing property owners immigrating 'down under' early 2022; rent or sell?

steampowered

You cannot tell us that you want "minimal stress", and "nothing risky", and then suggest keeping a property on the other side of the world with a massive debt attached to it, because you want to gamble that UK house prices might go up in future. That is extremely high risk. 

Keeping the UK property on the basis of a big mortgage sounds like madness to me:
- Investment returns are likely to be very low, and you may be making a loss, after taking account of mortgage costs, letting agent fees, maintenance costs and others.
- You have no practical way of keeping an eye on the property or sorting out issues from the other side of the world. If anything needed doing you'd have to pay the letting agent to sort it - at additional cost.
- It's extremely high risk. You are exposing yourself to interest rate rises; exchange rate fluctuations; risk of tenant non-payment; risk of tax changes affecting BTL; risk of tax changes to non-resident landlords; risk of being fleeced by the lender if you are unable to remortgage when your initial mortgage term comes to an end.
- You would also be sabotaging your chances of getting a mortgage in Australia, since you'd have a big chunk of capital locked into the UK property.
- You'll need to declare the income in both the UK and Australia, meaning multiple tax returns.

If you did want to get into the buy-to-let business, wouldn't you be better off doing that with a BTL property in Australia to mitigate many of the above issues?

Read up on tax issues which apply to non-resident landlords here: https://www.gov.uk/tax-uk-income-live-abroad/rent. You will also need to read the equivalent information about declaring income received from overseas property as an Australian tax resident.

Surely you are better off selling the property and putting the £60-100k aside in some other sensible form of investment. Cash savings if you need access to the money in the short term, stocks & shares if you are happy to invest for at least 5-10 years.

You say you want something low risk - stocks & shares are lower risk than what you are planning to do !!!! 

nathanscott90

@steampowered To be completely honest, this entire thread was concocted to prove the seriousness and level of risk we would be exposed to. I was always team option 2. Stocks and shares sounds interesting, however, probably too risky for me 
Thanks for your input.  

oldbikebloke

Comms69 said:

Dont forget that the host country (though i dont believe this applies to australia - i dont know for sure) can include income in other countries as taxable there.

for obvious reasons there is a tax treaty with Australia
tax treaties follow a basic template - income from "real property" is always taxed in the state in which the income arises, 
(see Artlcle 6)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/australia-tax-treaties
so the answer to your question is I did not forget it and it is irrelevant as I checked the tax treaty before posting anyway

Comms69

oldbikebloke said:

Comms69 said:

Dont forget that the host country (though i dont believe this applies to australia - i dont know for sure) can include income in other countries as taxable there.

for obvious reasons there is a tax treaty with Australia
tax treaties follow a basic template - income from "real property" is always taxed in the state in which the income arises, 
(see Artlcle 6)
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/australia-tax-treaties
so the answer to your question is I did not forget it and it is irrelevant as I checked the tax treaty before posting anyway

Didn't ask a question.
Suggested it probably didnt apply to Australia anyway (have zero reason to check) 
Was a general point for budding landlords to check local tax laws.

pinkpiglit

Thought I’d jump in to say we plan to do exactly the same thing – move to Oz – at the start of 2022.  Although given visa processing times and now COVID, there may be a delay.

I hate the idea of renting our flat, but we will do this temporarily.  Not for profit, but just in case we can’t stand Australian life and want to come back.  If we were to come back and didn’t own our own home, then I am 99% sure we couldn’t afford to buy in the location where we are now (and there’s nowhere else in London that we would rather be).

So we’re going to move and give it two years before we make any final decisions.  Assuming we don’t want to return to London, then we will be selling up and buying a home down under….. I am already stressing at the thought of trying to sell a tenanted flat.   

Comms69

pinkpiglit said:

Thought I’d jump in to say we plan to do exactly the same thing – move to Oz – at the start of 2022.  Although given visa processing times and now COVID, there may be a delay.

I hate the idea of renting our flat, but we will do this temporarily.  Not for profit, but just in case we can’t stand Australian life and want to come back.  If we were to come back and didn’t own our own home, then I am 99% sure we couldn’t afford to buy in the location where we are now (and there’s nowhere else in London that we would rather be).

So we’re going to move and give it two years before we make any final decisions.  Assuming we don’t want to return to London, then we will be selling up and buying a home down under….. I am already stressing at the thought of trying to sell a tenanted flat.   

You'll be stressing more when the tenants refuse to move and your sale falls through...

pinkpiglit

Comms69 said:

You'll be stressing more when the tenants refuse to move and your sale falls through...

You have hit the nail on the head - that's why I'm stressing and we haven't even moved yet !

Thrugelmir

pinkpiglit said:

….. I am already stressing at the thought of trying to sell a tenanted flat.   

Alternative is to sell with vacant possession. Though much of your previously made "profit" may disappear while the property is empty. 

pinkpiglit

Thrugelmir said:

Alternative is to sell with vacant possession. Though much of your previously made "profit" may disappear while the property is empty. 

Yes, I need to give it some good thought (and I realise I'm hijacking someone elses thread which isn't the right thing to do). 

We can't have it vacant the whole time as we can't afford to pay mortgatge here and rent there.  It's a bit of a pickle.  On the plus side, I've plenty of time to stew over it!

nathanscott90

pinkpiglit said:

Thrugelmir said:

Alternative is to sell with vacant possession. Though much of your previously made "profit" may disappear while the property is empty. 

Yes, I need to give it some good thought (and I realise I'm hijacking someone elses thread which isn't the right thing to do). 

We can't have it vacant the whole time as we can't afford to pay mortgatge here and rent there.  It's a bit of a pickle.  On the plus side, I've plenty of time to stew over it!

@pinkpiglit I'm so offended you are hijacking my thread! Lol, jokes aside, sounds like we are in the same predicament... Upon reviewing the comments in this thread, I am going to sell our place in London, wait 12-18 months to confirm we like it down under and then buy a place there to live in. Even if things don't go well and you want to return after 5 years, i'm sure that is a less risky option than becoming a landlord here in the UK.