paisleylass

Good info, thanks Alan!

We are nearing the end of this process, due to complete in a week! It has not been as straightforward as we hoped - we gave my mother in law POA before we left, same solicitor as the one handling the conveyancing, but no one can find any trace of this being executed. I have the receipt and hope to have this refunded, as we had to take a day out of our USA holiday and courier the disposition document which cost about $100 AU grrr, and today have to fork out more to have ID certified. Other issues include tenants having prepayment meters installed and debiting crazy amounts, so they keep cutting off electricity and gas!! Nice to be paying the tenants' debts off :-( at least the buyers can get these meters removed, we couldn't as we have no recent UK credit history. Can't wait to get rid!!

No need to stay in a hotel. Try stayz.com, the rent will be higher than a long term let but properties are furnished and include bills. We rented a small standalone house in Kedron north of Brisbane for a few weeks. It was well located and helped us explore the area and work out where was good to rent long term. In fact the rent wasn't much more than our long term house :-)

I had thyroid cancer in my early 20s, been clear 20 years now. At the medical, the doctor was more concerned with my free T4 level which is high, as it should be (suppression therapy), which he didn't understand. No issues whatsoever with the cancer itself :-)

As a wannabe first time buyer within the next 12 months, this is good news. Hope homeowners needing to sell won't lose out too much, but we need price rises at least to slow, or we could be priced out by the time we're ready to buy!

Ah cool! I think the value will have increased since we moved in 2011, but think we are exempt as we are well within 6 years since renting out, and haven't bought in Aus yet!

What happens if you bought in, say, 2007, then moved to Aus in 2011 on a 457, then got PR later - but didn't have the house valued upon moving to Aus cos we didn't know we should have?!

Thanks :cute: bit of a surprise, both the quick timing and the price offered! I suppose a house with private back yard is a rare thing at the low end of the market, though a few have sold at shockingly low prices recently. It does have nice views, with no houses directly opposite. We will be better off financially compared with if we sold when we first moved, not sure it's worth the burden, but the difference would be enough to have a pool built, if we buy a house without :wink:

Hope so! We amazingly already have an offer on our house in Paisley, at the top end of our expectations (still a loss, but as good as we can hope for!) Due to complete mid September. Just need to find out how long we can leave the cash in the UK before attracting capital gain on currency... If it even applies that is!

Quaker oat cereal bars, golden syrup flavour. I eat 'em like sweeties. Bought 4 boxes back from our recent UK trip, scoffed 3 boxes, saving the last for special. Thorntons caramel shortcakes. Interestingly, I found quite similar caramel shortcakes in the bread aisle at Woolies, not quite as nice but passable. Made in Pontefract, by gum! M&S Swiss Mountain Bars. Kinda like Toblerone but I prefer these. Super interestingly, Aldi Australia has completely identical bars, in some of the same flavours. Same supplier, different country, different brand? Even the shape of each chunk is identical. Morrisons vegetable crackers, fab dipped in a tub of dairylea. Gutted to find Morrisons discontinued them. Related: tubs of cheese spread - Dairylea, Laughing Cow, store brand. Can get Laughing Cow triangles here but the packaging is inconvenient. Cream cheese doesn't do it for me. Didn't realise how much I missed til we visited,

We are about to pull out of renting. It's been awful, so stressful. Last two tenants abandoned and left a lot of damage, dirt, mess and arrears. The deposit is a joke and barely scratches the surface of our losses. I may be biased, but my advice is only let out if you are prepared for headaches, heartaches and expense. Tenants often do not care about your house fixtures and decoration. We have holes in walls, the colours we chose for the walls have been covered with tacky wallpaper, mirrors glued to a wall, kitchen cupboard door destroyed by a massive dog, several metres of fence pulled down. Last tenants claimed to be professionals but were still claiming housing benefit for their previous home, and funnily enough did not pass it on to us. Maybe we are very unlucky, but please be prepared.

Just popped back to say thanks heaps for all the lovely thoughts and comments. My head was an absolute mess when I did that post and in hindsight it was maybe an odd thing to do, so public and candid. But depression and suicide are often taboo, not to be discussed, and hidden away. Perhaps these issues should be discussed more openly. The funeral last week was harrowing but a lovely celebration of my brother's life. And if it wasn't apparent to many of the huge crowd that turned up how my brother had died, it would have been by the end. So many saw him as happy, funny, crazy... But his other side was openly discussed, to the shock of many. I agreed to see the place where he ended his life, which was helpful as well as immensely upsetting. I can't begin to imagine how awful it would have been to find him. To the OP, that is absolutely harrowing, I hope you are not troubled by this memory too much.

Thanks Ali, we will all be trying to make sense of this for a long time. He also leaves behind his young wife and loads of great friends.

One week ago we received the devastating news that my younger brother had committed suicide. Hubby and I are currently at the airport, travelling to the UK for his funeral. He was just here with us 4 weeks ago. Doesn't seem real.

Cheers, will take one of my re-useable water bottles and empty when needed ?

Cheers DT, great info! Never been to the middle east before, only done the UK-Aus journey once and that was through USA, where we knew what to expect heh. Sounds like Abu Dhabi will be relatively easy.

Hi all We are flying back to UK on Sunday, our first time with Etihad. Both legs are operated by Etihad and land/depart from terminal 3. What's the procedure for transit? Website is unclear. Do we have to go through security again? Will we have issues if we have purchased liquids before landing at Abu Dhabi? I assume we don't have to collect luggage or 'land' in UAE. Any advice appreciated, I am sure there will be plenty of people here who've used Etihad!

Cheers Alan!

Cheers Alan!

Hey all This year we need help with our Australian tax returns as it's our first (and hopefully last) year declaring foreign property income. When I say income, we are expecting a substantial loss due to non-paying tenants in the UK who then abandoned the house, leaving a load of works to be carried out. This, on top of several repairs carried out during the tenancy. After shelling out so much money for repairs I really hope we can get some kind of refund on our Australian income tax paid. So we need a good accountant who is familiar with these issues, and can help us claim as much as we legally can. Any recommendations much appreciated! :cute:

Yes, same for cats, never give a cat chocolate please!!

Panic over, we can claim it, it's just not automatically calculated for non residents. Not an issue this year as we have yet another net loss, however when we finally dispose of the house it would be needed to offset CGT!

I'm using TaxCalc to do our UK tax returns, and have changed residence status to non-resident, claiming allowance on some other basis (UK citizen). Before I did this the summary showed allowance of £9,440. Now it's £0, which I wasn't expecting! Have I done something wrong? I though UK citizens get the allowance fir the time being, even if non resident and non domiciled! stupid thing is due to be submitted within two days

Just me, hubby and cat the last two days, perfect. No pressure, no going anywhere, just lazing in the pool, getting showered and dressed at lunch time, roast dinner on the deck around 3pm with copious beer and wine and a fish-shaped bowl of turkey for the meow-monster. We're off for lunch and drinks with friends tomorrow but I'm enjoying a few days rest and peace.

Yeah, amazing I got off so lightly, thinking back. The skimmer box is not far off half a metre deep with basket removed....! Maybe the water softened the blow a tiny bit