Can I claim this as maintenance ??

[sarchibald]

Gday everyone well its been sometime since i have posted on this forum, been quite busy.
Well we have had a tenant placed into a nursing home as he is not able to care for himself in the rental property. The House is a 2 bedroom miners cottage and is quite old built in 1979.
The house as is is not in any state to be able to be re-rented.
We are renovating the property to enable it to be rented out.
The walls are being re-plastered new light fitting new electrical cableing etc it is a fairly big reno.
My question is to anybody that may know can we claim any of this on our tax not capital improvements as the property is un rentable as is.
The electricial has told us the house is in need of a re-wire can this also be claimed as maintenance for tax purposes

Any help ideas or suggestions are much appreciated

Cheers
Sooz and Archie

 

[skater]

I am not an accountant, but my take on it is that you can claim anything that is wear & tear as maintenance, however the rest of it gets added to the cost base.

 

[depreciator]

Strictly speaking, a 'repair' takes something back to the state it was in when you bought it. How long have you owned the property for?
Scott