Good financial planners? Or is that the right thing?

I'm in a position where I'm looking to restructure my finances significantly, specifically in regards to property. I won't get into the full details, but short version: I have a property I live in which I want to rent out, my girlfriend wants to buy an investment property, and we want to buy a place to live in together. Lots of stuff to work out, both on how to structure this legally, how much we can borrow, if this whole plan is a stupid idea, etc.

Are we best to see a financial planner? An accountant? Lawyer? Someone else? Does anyone have any specific recommendations? I'm generally wary of financial planners and their tendency to give advice that benefits them, but I think there's some genuine ones out there.

Sydney based is ideal, but it's not critical.

 

A financial planner is a great person to talk to about organising your life insurance or buying ASX listed shares.

 

Ok, so sounds like a financial planner isn't for me. The more I think about it, the more I think the legal structure is the most important bit. But also someone who can give at least a ballpark of how much $ we can borrow.

 

A broker for the finance side of things, and a lawyer for the ownership structure would be ideal.

Chat to a broker first, find out how much you can borrow and if what you're hoping to do is possible, and chat to the lawyer after that.

 

Would the how much we can borrow be significantly impacted by the legal structure? Or is that not likely to change substantially?

 

The ownership structure doesn't really change how much you can borrow. if you can borrow $X in your own name then you could set up a trust or company which could also borrow $x with you as guarantor.

This can change dependon on how the entity is structured.

As for structuring have a read of my legal and tax tips.
Index of Legal Tips https://propertychat.com.au/community/threads/terryws-legal-tips-index.4581/
Index of Tax Tips https://propertychat.com.au/community/threads/terrys-tax-tips.3010/

You should try to understand as much as you can before seeking legal advice so you can benefit more.

 

Gold right here. Works for accountants financial planners and brokers too.

 

And medical. I like to self diagnose my diseases before visiting the doc.

 

I've learnt that 'General' Practitioner means exactly that with the odd rugby injury over the years. A cortisone injection to the knuckle highlighted that not all GP's are created equal...

 

This is not quite true - if you buy a neg geared property in a family trust it can definitely affect your borrowing capacity as you can't use negative gearing.

 

yes true, but how many properties are negative geared according to the bank's calcs these days. I did one yesterday and there was no negative gearing benefit at all.

 

Haha their is nothing my wife has not had yet according to her, same goes for our pets.