Transfer Duty Exemption - Renting out property within 12 months

Hi all,

I bought my first place in November last year in QLD and claimed the transfer duty exemption.

In September this year I'll be going overseas for a few months and would like to rent out the place.

Cognisant of the requirement to live in the place for 12 months after claiming the exemption, do I have any options for renting out the place before November? It would still be my primary place of residence whilst away.

Any advice would be much appreciated.
 
I had a similar thing happen - claimed exemption as FHB and moved in but was working away at the time. Ended up being gone for long periods of time and voiding insurance was looking to be an issue (60+ days with no occupants).

I spoke to OSR to see if it was ok to allow my brother to stay in the house rent-free (still my primary place of residence, with my furniture, etc still in it for when I was in town) - they told me that that even doing that would be giving posession of the property to someone else and would mean I did not meet my stamp duty obligations. I spoke to two different people and got the same answer. In the end I decided to move my stuff out and rent it out, it wasn't worth the risk of a house with a voided insurance policy and I was never there anyway.

Process was that I had to notify OSR of when I was no longer able to meet the requirements, and I had to pay back stamp duty. It was calculated as Pro-rata of the whole amount for only the amount of time that I had not fulfilled the stamp duty obligation.
 
Thank you for the advice, this is really useful.

Might be worth renting it out and just paying a portion of the transfer duty back as the rental income would be larger.

Not a risk I'd want to take, but wow would the OSR find out about me renting the place out before the 12 months is up?
 
Hi all,

I bought my first place in November last year in QLD and claimed the transfer duty exemption.

In September this year I'll be going overseas for a few months and would like to rent out the place.

Cognisant of the requirement to live in the place for 12 months after claiming the exemption, do I have any options for renting out the place before November? It would still be my primary place of residence whilst away.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

You are confusing the CGT main residence exemption with the stamp duty rules. Your question should consider:
- QLD duty concession for first home buyers
- QLD land tax; and
- CGT

The states have fairly good access to Commonwealth data too. OSR NSW did a data match a few years back with persons who departed Australia for similar reasons as part of investigation into stamp duty overclaims. All under to auspices of the ATO who have a datasharing agreement with the states. They data matched persons who were more than merely holiday travellers and used responses on the departing Australia passenger cards (they are processed !)

Refunding the portion of transfer duty may be wise.

Land tax - Its likely your portion of land value would be under the threshold but well worth checking.

CGT MR exemption - Despite renting the prop the MR exemption may continue for up to 6 years if you continue to meet the criteria. It would be worth considering the value of the property the day you move out as there is a issue that can impact if you exceed six years.

But then if you move out and leave Australia for 6 years there is probably a far worse issue...Loss of the CGT discount while you are non-resident. A few months doesn't affect tax residency but 6 + years would.
 
If somebody rents out their PPOR 1 month after moving in, then as has been stated, a pro-rata amount has to paid to the OSR. ie 11/12ths.

BUT an investment property attracts a higher rate of transfer duty than a PPOR. So would the amount of duty to be paid be based on the PPOR rate of duty or on the IP rate of duty?
 
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