LittleMissWildChild

Hi there I'm wondering here if anyone here can help. My husband and I live in Australia but he has a flat in London. We want to sell the UK flat and buy something here instead. We currently own (well, the bank does) a house in Australia. Anyway my husband is a permanent resident for Australia, and is a Non-Resident Landlord for tax purposes in the UK. He always does a UK tax return as well as an Australian one. When we sell the flat does he need to pay capital gains in the UK bearing in mind that he will be paying capital gains in Australia as well? And how does he opt out of doing a tax return in future once it is sold and we have no ties to the UK, as after we sell it that will be our final tax return - we don't want to get fines for not submitting a tax return in future when we don't actually need to. We have tried contacting HMRC but not had any luck, they don't seem to understand what we're asking. We're happy to pay whatever tax we need to pay, we just don't want to have to pay it twice.

Sorry if this has been asked before. Hubby has a UK flat, we are living in Oz so he has a tenant. We're thinking of selling it and buying something here. We have been in Oz for just under 2 years. I'm an Aussie citizen, he has PR. 1. He is currently doing UK tax returns for his UK income from his flat (and then mentions it on his OZ tax return). If he sells does he need to pay tax on selling the flat in the UK and then in Oz? Or can he just cut the UK out and declare everything in the UK as he is now PR here? 2. This will sound really stupid but we've never sold a property - how does capital gains work? We have only had a tenant in there from maybe 5 months before we came here. The flat was worth £145K when we left - we got a quote from his letting agent at the time - its now worth £175K now. His mortgage is still £105K. To my understanding he only pays capital gains on the difference between what it was when he left and what it is now, is that right? I read on the NAB website (albeit from 2011) that: 'If you’ve acquired a capital gains tax (CGT) asset after 21 September 1999 and held it for over 12 months before selling it, you should be able to obtain a 50% discount on the capital gain. If you sell an asset less than 12 months after buying it you don’t get the 50% discount and should pay tax on the full capital gain.'. Does that therefore mean if the property sells for £175K (and i understand there are fees etc) and his flat was worth £145K so the diff is £30K if the property was subject to capital gains, it would only be for £15k? And can we split that between us? Our incomes are similar. Sorry for all the stupid questions TIA x

Hubby is doing his tax return for his UK rental property (we live in Oz) and is stuck on a question. 'Tax taken off total rents and other income from property: (Please read the notes.) The notes say: 'This field should only be completed if you are a non-resident landlord. Enter the total tax taken off the amount reported in 'Total rents and other income from property including any furnished holiday lettings profits'. I have googled it but am stuck as to what we need to put in this box. Help anyone? I appreciate any help

My husband is on a 309 visa. Since arriving a year ago, he has applied for 3 jobs and got all 3 jobs (only took 1 though). His visa status hasn't been a problem. He just says his wife is Aussie and we're staying here for good, none of his employers have even questioned whether his visa is temporary or not.

For us what we like the most is: Cheaper housing (London compared to Adelaide) - we can actually afford to buy a 4 bed house here (we earn only $100K a year between us) which is 100m from the beach, in London we probably wouldn't have even been able to save enough for the deposit to get a 2 bed. Better quality of life for our toddler - yes there were museums, but only 1 park nearby, our flat in London didn't even have a balcony. Here we walk the dog on the beach, lots of childrens parks nearby to play in, we can go kayaking, fishing, walking in the hills, go to wildlife parks etc...this wouldn't have been as easily accessible for us in London. Fortnightly pay is amazing. Getting money for your cans and bottles in SA We have never had to pay for anything for the doctors (our doctor bulk bills everyone) Cheaper public transport (compared to London) A proper summer (41c) today - we don't have to take wellies when we go to festivals! Getting paid overtime and having a 38 hour working week - I know this is just personal experience but most of my jobs in the UK had a 45 - 48 working week for average pay and no overtime, and some had up to 70 hours with the same. There are lots of things the UK is better for though, and we loved London. Ultimately Adelaide is better for us as our little boy will have a better life here as we can afford a house with a garden.

I'm not saying people who have jobs which require no training etc should be on $30/$40/$50 an hour. I'm saying that $16 is a pretty rubbish wage as it is if you are trying to support a family, and for someone who is on a decent salary to begrudge our lowest paid workers a couple of dollars an hour, is just greedy. Plus my husband was until recently in a job which was only paying just over the minimum wage - and he has qualifications on both refrigeration and electrical, plus also around 20 years work experience, in the industry he was employed in, but that is all he could get at the time. Some employers are just greedy and will try to pay their staff as little as possible. Say we cut the minimum wage to $13 an hour. Do you really think all these employers will hire more staff? Ha! The directors and owners and shareholders will just make more profits, as they know the work can get done with the amount of employees they have already, so why hire more?

I think everyone who thinks the minimum wage is too high should first offer to take a proper cut in their own salaries. I bet most of them wouldn't want to take a chunk off their $80k/$100k/$200k salaries to increase employment etc... It's alright to suggest the poorest workers have their wage cut, but I bet it's not alright to have their own, even though many of these workers work just as hard, for long hours and do the jobs a lot of others won't do. It's just greed.

Ours was delivered to Adelaide and it took 15 weeks!

Tina, yes they can sell debt to an international company, and they might make the odd phone call or send the odd threatening letter, however there is NOTHING the bank or these companies can do to make you pay the debt from Australia and it won't affect your Australian credit rating. There is a reciprocal agreement between Australia and the UK re chasing CCJs but apparently the costs involved to transfer it over so it can be enforced in Australia are so high that they don't usually bother.

TBH if there isn't a huge difference between the two once you factor in the cost of a definite flight change, I'd go for Singapore. They sound more flexible - but if Singapore costs more than £1000 I'd probably go Etihad, as even with a couple of changes, they're cheaper. Plus Singapore airlines are fab.

Can't you wait until both legs have been released? If not, how much more would Etihad charge to change? If its not much difference between them and Singapore, then just pick the airline you'd prefer to go with. I love Singapore Airlines and I guess if they don't charge to make amendments I'd probably go for that one, as i presume you could change more than once if needed, whereas if you had to change your date a 2nd time with Etihad they would charge you again.

Oh one more thing re baby food and milk make sure you bin everything when you get off the plane, including milk, or declare the lot - Oz is very very strict about bringing any food products in, and you could face a fine if they catch any left over or uneaten baby food or milk on you, which you haven't declared.

We flew from London to Adelaide with our then 9 month old son. It's probably too late now, but breaking up the trip with a stop over can really help. Bring a few familiar toys to play with, and be prepared to walk up and down the cabin constantly! Make sure you book a sky bassinette prior to travel, I wouldnt have done the trip without it, not only do you get somewhere for your little one to sleep, but you get bulkhead seating so there is lots of room for your little one and you to sit on the floor and play. I have found that many airlines don't tend to bring extra blankets on the flight, and if the flight is full you might end up going without, as you will need one for the bottom of the bassinet and one to put on top of bubs to use as a blanket. DH and I took a couple of baby blankets, though a baby sleeping bag would do. I breast fed my son, so didnt have to worry about formula, but I believe you can bring a reasonable amount of made up bottles with you, you might just be asked to taste some of them. The airlines will normally heat the bottles up for you (I think Virgin Atlantic even keep spare baby bottles and formula on board on their flights!). You can order baby meals, we didn't bother as I think they are normally jarred mush anyway. We brought a few Ella's Kitchen pouches on the flight with us (we have been asked to taste them before on flights to the states but not to Oz), and we ordered a child's meal for our son as opposed to a baby meal, as he was starting to eat solids. Be aware that most of the children's meals on flights seem to be, in our experience, nuggets and chips etc, so not exactly healthy (but we adults ate it anyway, as my little boy was too moody to each much!). We also bought bottled water (make sure you don't buy mineral water, as it's not good for babies) once we had gone through the security checks, and put it into our sons sippy cup. To be honest, our son didn't fly very well to Kuala Lumpur, but I think he had picked up on the stress of the last week or so and all the goodbyes, so he screamed blue murder the whole way. The flight to Adelaide from KL was a night flight and he slept like a dream. At the end of the day, don't be too worried about other passengers, if your little girl cries, so be it, tough luck to everyone else - I found that most passengers tried to help by pulling faces and playing with our son, and we got there in the end

Ours did. We were quoted for both 120 and 140 square ft, and our total turned out to be 83 sq ft. The total we paid was a couple of hundred lower than initially quoted.

Hi everyone I have a quick CV question. I have tried to contact my recruitment agencies but everyone who I normally deal with is out of the office at the moment and I need a reply pretty quickly. I have found a job I want to apply for, and it suits my work history - I have worked in a fairly similar role in the UK, with my most recent employer, for 3 years, although completely different industry. My problem is my CV. In the past 11 years I have held 10 day jobs (more if you count part time bar work etc which I did as a 2nd job). I have had two jobs in which I was in 3 and 4 years respectively. But I have another couple of years where I had chopped and changed quite a few times, some I was only in for 2 or 3 months. I got made redundant unfortunately from 3 jobs when the credit crunch hit. I quit one job as one of the directors was bullying colleagues (it was pretty bad and a few people walked out, one person up and left at lunch time and never came back!) and I didn't want to be part of it (I made an excuse for leaving the company and left on good terms), the next job I got I was bullied by one of the directors myself, and got out of there after 2 months (I could have taken it further but I decided I didn't want to bother, and I did get a good reference at the time from the other director who was pretty embarrassed). One job was a temp role I did to help out a previous employer, and two I left because, I was, well, cr*p at them, they were corporate and not for me. I am aware that having too many jobs on my CV looks rubbish, so I have in the past left out some of the smaller short term roles. However this job I want to go for is all about integrity and honesty etc etc so I don't want to look like I am hiding my past, plus apparently they do background checks so I don't want to leave anything out and look bad later. I would in any other circumstance only put my past 5 years work history on my CV in that case, however one of my main referrees was my employer 10 years ago who I was with for 4 years, and his reference is glowing. I don't want to omit working for him all those years ago, and then offer him as a referee. I am restricted with referees as many of them are no longer operating, or I wasn't with them very long so I don't think they can really highlight my skills the way this employer (and my most recent one can), and I will probably need three. I need to get the application in today. Any suggestions?

Nytol One A Night, available from over the counter at Boots/Superdrug are fab. Not quite as good as diazepam but no prescription needed! You can also buy a herbal version on the shop shelves, they're okay but nothing fab, the One A Night ones from over the counter are the business!

I had my little boy (emergency section) at Kings College Hospital in London last year and I could not have asked for better care. They were amazing. I've heard good things about Oz care too.

Possibly yes, although everyone I know in London has to wait a considerable length of time for a doctors appointment, certainly not the same day or next day, not even usually the same week. And no one I know in Adelaide has to wait more than a day generally speaking. Perhaps it is better than other parts of the UK but I didn't live there and can only go by my own experience. And for me, waiting times in Australia are LOADS better than in SW2 - or any of the numerous other London postcodes in which I lived in the past 14 years.

That's one thing I don't miss about the UK - having to wait 2 weeks for a doctors appointment. Now in Oz I can get appointments the same day - and at a number of different times of day to choose from. My little boy seemed not right last week, and we happened to be driving past the surgery, so we stopped in, and asked to see someone. We were seen within 5 minutes. That would never have happened at my doctors in Brixton.

I don't know if you *have* to, but I would be thinking that they can't force you. Just tell them that you will go elsewhere entirely if they try to force you, plenty of other shippers won't make you. The shippers we used didn't even give us a quote, they sent a form with a box we had to tick and sign saying we understood there would be a further charge for their insurance, I sent all my forms back except this one, which was blank, with a note saying we would not be using their insurance as we had found it considerably cheaper elsewhere. They sent a rather nasty email saying that if we didn't use their insurance, they would give us SFA if anything happened, and that any other shipping insurance was inferior and we would end up disappointed. I said I would take my chances. They have been pretty rubbish to be honest, almost 15 weeks now and still(!) waiting, zero concept of customer service, unresponsive to emails, sending incorrect tracking information, etc etc but that is another thread. Call their bluff, and say you will use someone else entirely if they get militant about using their insurance.

I dont know much about applying for a UK partner visa (we did the other direction), but I don't think it takes as long to get as the aussie partner visa (weeks as opposed to 8+ months). I do know that there is a financial requirement of the sponsor (i.e. your hubby) earning a minimum of (I believe) £18600 PA in Oz plus having a firm job offer I believe in the UK in which he will at least £18600 (it would be more if your children were not entitled to British citizenship) to start within 3 months of arriving. You kids would be able to apply for British citizenship through descent. Im not sure about your final question. If you google the Expat Forum website and then go to the British section, you will be able to ask there and get a more detailed answer from people going the other direction:)

When we applied for hubby's 309, I left the space for dependants blank and wrote a small note in the side saying our son was an Australian citizen. It was pretty obvious only DH was applying as we included copies of our sons citizenship certificate and Aussie passport, and we mentioned this in our personal statements. It must have been fine to do this as our CO didn't mention anything and we had no problems getting DH the visa.

We had a farewell party a week before we left and it was fab. We had most friends join us in the pub, and then after that we went to a friends for a house party and hubby and I staggered home at 5am (the party went on to the next afternoon). It was amazing - and necessary. We had a lot of friends in the UK and between packing, seeng family, and looking after out baby, we didn't have time (or money) for numerous goodbye drinks. So we got everyone out the way in one go, and then had a quiet dinner with out best friends on our last night.

Although I believe in tipping, we didn't bother - we only shipped 30 odd boxes and most of it we prepacked anyway (presuming they would pack it properly, we just wanted it out the way). They didn't repack anything and were in and out in 90 minutes. Had it been an all day job I would have probably given them a tenner each and supplied food etc.

Hi everyone, This has probably been asked a dozen times, but I think I must be blind, as I haven't managed to weed out the answer. Hubby is in Oz on a 309 (so, provisional) visa. He has a mortgage on a flat in the UK, and he rents it out. He has signed up to the non-residential landlord scheme. Hubby seems to think that as the money he earns from his flat is staying in the UK, as he is using it to pay off his mortgage, and therefore not coming into Oz at all, he won't need to declare it on his Oz tax return, and instead will do a UK tax return for the flat each year (and get a tax free threshold there too). I think that he will have to declare any income he earns from his flat from when he arrived in Oz on his tax return (with the amount he earned prior to his arrival in Oz/when he was resident in the UK being declared on his UK tax return). Furthermore if he wants to be a resident in Australia for tax purposes, and take advantage of the tax free threshold, he will have to declare any income he makes from his flat from the date we arrived onwards forevermore (unless we move from Oz/stop renting it out) and pay tax on it in Australia, not the UK. The only bit I am unsure about is he is on a 309 visa, which technically means he is on a temporary visa for now. Who is correct? Or are we both wrong? I think we're both probably being a bit thick