Wanderer Returns

Oh that's good - it'd seem likely you won't have any issues with FIRB then Having recently purchased a property here, I'm reasonably informed on available concessions. The $15,000 Queensland First Home Owners’ Grant is still available, but you only get it if you are buying or building a new house, unit or townhouse, valued at less than $750,000. This also includes homes you can buy 'off the plan'. If you are a first-time buyer you can get a transfer duty exemption (same as UK stamp duty) called a First Home Concession on property up to the value of $500,000, and then there's a sliding scale of exemption up to $550,000 (if the property costs any more than that, you don't get the concession). This may well apply to you given your likely budget. There is also a general Home Concession on transfer duty which almost everyone is entitled to at the moment, if they live in their property for a year, and they don't rent it out during that time. These concessions aren't guaranteed, and can of course be removed by the government at any time in the future. Here are some links to the Queensland government website, which should prove helpful... https://www.qld.gov.au/housing/buying-owning-home/financial-help-concessions/qld-first-home-grant https://www.qld.gov.au/housing/buying-owning-home/advice-buying-home/transfer-duty/how-much-you-will-pay/concessions-on-transfer-duty/concessions-for-homes/first-home-concession https://www.qld.gov.au/housing/buying-owning-home/advice-buying-home/transfer-duty/how-much-you-will-pay/concessions-on-transfer-duty/concessions-for-homes/home-concession

Yes, we bought a place in Caloundra back in June. We put down a $250k deposit and have a $450 loan, and our home is still pretty modest by Australian standards

I should've said congratulations on getting your partner visa. The wife and I have been through this process, and it's a big deal to get it Now the not-so-good-news... You'll be a temporary resident for two years, and I believe there are restrictions on buying property that means you'll incur a lot of additional costs. I will stop there because I don't want to give you any misinformation, and there are others on the forum more informed on this matter. $50,000 is a pretty small deposit. Even with a 90% mortgage, which you'll need to pay LMI on (lenders mortgage insurance on loans greater than 80% is a requirement here), you'd be looking at a $450,000 property. That will just about buy you an apartment in Brisbane's inner suburbs, a townhouse in the outer suburbs, or a new-build if you're prepared to live a long way out from the city - like the Moreton Bay regions (North or South). Being polite, some of these areas aren't that great, even though they make the houses look amazing in the advertising material. A lot depends on where you end up working. If you are limited to finding work in S E Queensland then I'd suggest you rent until you can save up a big enough deposit to buy in the area you want. By then you will also have a much clearer idea of where you want to live too. If you are flexible and are happy to live in a regional Queensland town (personally I quite like Bundaberg and Maryborough), then you will still be able to afford a property with $50,000 deposit, at the moment. A lot depends on how much you want/need to live in/near Brisbane, to be honest.

No worries - that's what the forum is here for. After you've sold your UK home, what deposit will you have to put down on a property here? Yes, it's different - at the at the moment you can borrow a lot more money at lower interest rates than in the UK, which you may (or may not) want to take advantage of.

At least we'll never have to worry about being nuked by the Russians, and I think China and N.Korea are still a bit too far away!

When's the latest entry date on your visa?

Brilliant description of North Lakes by @Loopylu - that's pretty much everything in a nutshell. I'd have been less complimentary, but then I'm one of the people who get stuck on the highway on my way into Brissie! You need to get through by 6.30am to avoid a long delay. The shopping centre there is impressive - I'll say that - and then there's Costco of course. If you say what your property budget is, that would be helpful on advising you where to live

I remember it well - in fact I'm still trying to forget the stench! Wasn't it close to the Hunloke Arms? That used to be a pretty rough pub at one time but it's been tarted up recently, and looks rather posh now. Well, posh by Chessie standards

What a kind thing to do. I feel very privileged to have grown up in an era when I came home from school and mum was there because only my father needed to work. I doubt there are few kids in the 21st century who don't have both parents working. The way things are going with house prices, the next generation will be hard-pressed to afford their own home even with both parents working, without help from the Bank of Mum & Dad.

The Florida bonkfest sounds more appealing than fermenting in one's own pee in a high chair, but I still think it's a one-way trip to Switzerland for me.

Let's just say that compared with a lot of countries around the world, the UK is a very safe place to keep your wealth. There are also very few restrictions on foreigners buying property in the UK, which may well account for this...

If memory serves me correctly it was off-shore in the Channel Islands in some kind of trust fund, out of the HMRC's reach. It was all over the news at the time. At 40% IHT his estate would've been up for the best part of a £1 million tax bill, but instead only around £50,000 was due. Even though there was nothing illegal it raised some serious ethical questions about the rich paying their taxes, which has continued with tech companies and the like. What I was implying was that before they raised the inheritance tax threshold, many were proactively disposing of their assets to their children to reduce their exposure to inheritance tax. This had the knock-on effect that they had less money to pay for age care, should they need it, so the government were losing out. By raising the inheritance tax threshold people became less inclined to do this.

Very true. I recall David Cameron's father leaving an estate valued at £2.75 million, which was reduced to just £2.7million after liabilities. Now that is some effective tax planning! Successive governments have realized the British public consider inheritance tax to be an unfair tax and they'll do all sorts to avoid it, including siphoning off large amounts of capital to children in their later lives - meaning there's less money to pay for aged care.

Curiosity got the better of me in the end - so it's her out of Kath & Kim, which surely has to be the most over-rated Australian TV show of all time. I thought it was rubbish when it first came out, and as it popped up on Netflix during lockdown I revisited it to see if maybe I'd missed something... Nope. Just a load of folks squawking at each other for 30 minutes, with the occasional half-arsed gag thrown in. The fact that it was such a big hit here in Australia just goes to show the standard of what's generally on offer.

I've never heard of him/her. I thought a Zubanski was some kind of vegetable over here

Roared with laughter when I read this, Paul - you're right on the money. I haven't seen Vigil but the last 'Feminist Porn' I watched was just prior to leaving the UK, and the one with a young lass as a world-class assassin who systematically polishes off caddish gammons right, left and centre. In all fairness she was pretty convincing in the part, until a scene where we saw her running as quickly as she could into the bushes. I felt a lot safer after that

Yes, that's the one. There's no Chesterfield on the Gold Coast, although I imagine there's one lurking somewhere in outback Australia - but without the crooked spire It'd have to be pretty serious to get me anywhere near an A&E department in the UK. The 'target waiting time' to be seen is 4 hours, so lord knows how long people actually have to wait.

You've just described life in Scandinavian countries, which in spite of the weather are generally regarded as offering their citizens the best quality of life in world. Yes, taxes are higher to pay for it, but personally I'm happy to pay more tax if it means not living in a country surrounded by poor, sick, stupid people. Their systems benefits everyone - not just the wealthy.

@Tulip1 it's the £86k cap that I consider unfair - not that people should have to pay something towards their aged care - although that's also debatable depending on what you believe should be state-funded in a civilized society. The £23,250 threshold hasn't been raised in decades. If they had increased that to say £50k, it would have been fairer. My mum received subsidized homecare (4 visits a day at the end of her life), and the savings threshold for her to receive that was £50,000, but that this figure is set by local authority - not the government. The £86k cap isn't going to help most people because 18 months in aged care is likely to cost £50-70k. I can't see how you can call a system fair where someone with nothing pays nothing, someone with £120k in assets pays £86k, and someone with £1m is still pays £86k. As I mentioned before, the cap is just an umbrella to protect the rich.

That's still correct, and where we living in Chesterfield we were waiting a week to 10 days to see the quack - and you can't easily register with another doctor - you need to be in the catchment area for that surgery. After my wife had her operation 3 weeks ago she needed a dressing changing, and was able to walk into a doctors on Sunday without an appointment - even here on the Sunshine Coast.

Thanks for the insight. I've no idea how the system works over here, and considering I'm a decade older than my wife I should probably know more because out of the two of us I'll be the most likely recipient of the service In the UK the average cost of aged care is now an eye-watering £700/week (£900/week for nursing care), so it'll not take you around 2 years to burn through £86,000.

Only £86k?! That's a huge amount of money for most people. This policy is an absolute disgrace and yet another shining of example of 'rip-off Britain'. I'm not getting into a debate about who should pay for aged care but this is a typically-cynical UK government policy, designed to protect the assets of the wealthy. Brits are currently leaving an average inheritance of around £125,000, so this £86,000 cap will be of little benefit to most. They might end up with an extra 10 grand in their estate, if their benefactors are lucky. Meanwhile, those without a brass razoo will continue to receive heavily-subsidized aged care, just as they have been heavily-subsidized throughout their entire lives. This system is outrageously unfair.

Whatever the inheritance is (which is never guaranteed) it would likely be divided equally amongst siblings. (Sorry Nemesis, that does seem quite harsh - and respect to you for taking it so well). Other considerations are that any remaining parent may need to go into age care, which would drain the funds at a phenomenal rate (at least in the UK - I don't know about the system over here). Then there are funeral expenses, and the costs involved in selling the family home - not to mention inheritance tax, if you life in the UK. There are also a large number of people living in government housing who have never owned their own home. They won't be leaving much of an inheritance unless they win the lottery. I think it's much safer (and more rewarding) to rely on what you can create for yourself rather than waiting for hand-me-down wealth.

I'm sure they have. I paid my first mortgage off at 52. I now have another one, although I won't have paid it off until I'm 85 so I just consider that I'm renting my property from the bank, and there will hopefully be a tax-free windfall when I come to sell it. I accept that I won't ever own this house outright, and that doesn't bother me at all. (Well, maybe just a little). My earlier comment was referring to those who are now just buying their first homes in their mid-thirties. They are unlikely to be able to retire at 60, unless they are high earners or make some very lucrative investments along the way.

These viewpoints are fine if you're one of those approaching retirement or have recently retired, and you own a sizeable property that you can downsize. The only homes that many young people can now afford are these 'lego brick cubes' they are throwing up, and they will be paying them off for decades, with very little scope to downsize in future. The average age Australians can afford their first home is now around 36. There's no way these first-time buyers are going to be retiring at 60 - they'll be lucky if they can stop work at 70. If you're happy to live in a country with a lower cost of living and rent your Australian home out for a few years, then you probably can afford to retire earlier - that's our (loose) plan anyway