Student loan - living abroad with UK rental income

oglop

Hello

I live abroad and it's time to fill in the overseas assessment. This is usually fine, but from this year, I have a UK rental income. I have a few questions:

1. I spent a lot of money on this property this year and will definitely make a huge loss - for this year anyway. Does this have any effect on my "total income" that I have to inform the student loans people of? I've seen mixed things on the internet so I'm not sure if rules have changed or something. 

2. The threshold where I live now is MUCH lower than in the UK (depsite the cost of living being very similar). However, if I include the UK rental income, it puts me WAY above the threshold for where I live, putting repayments at hundreds of pounds each month. This seems silly, as if I was living in the UK on the same income, I'd be paying only a fraction of what the calcular spat out.

3. The only option on the self assessment form on their website is to work out my UK rental income for the year and convert it into my local currency and then add that to the total. Is that right? Seems an odd way to do it.

I've been trawling the internet for couldn't find anything concrete to these answers. Thanks again!

silvercar

I would have thought that it is the profit of the letting business that count, not the total income. ie you take off all expenses that you have had to get the net gain.

oglop

well, this is what i thought at first. but i've read in various places (nothing official - i can't find anything official) that the rules have changed, and that now income is income regardless of expenses. although that doesn't make sense to me. arghh

oglop

I called the Student Loans phone number and the woman advised me to just fill in my details for my Korean employment. She said I can only fill in about the rental income if I was self employed..but I'm not

Honestly, that doesn't sound right. But I guess I'll just fill out details like usual and only complete details about my Korean salary, following her advice. It's not like I made a profit this year anyway so I guess I'll just see if they get back to me about the rental income in the future.

Unless anyone else here has a better idea?