Transfering home to family memebr

First post this forum. Hope you can all be nice
Probably not right place for this post but did not seem to fit in any other place

Background
Retired Electrical Engineer and Teacher. Live rural Vic on 10 acres. Back in 2010 decided to leave house to youngest daughter and move to much smaller prop in city nearer services. Youngest daughter who had moved back home decided to stay and live here. We have NOT changed title to her.
About same time she needed to start family due to medical condition (not serious). No Mr Right so decided to be single mum and asked us to stay at family property and help with child raising.
We agreed and has been a great ride since. We added on an extra wing a couple of years ago to stop us all killing each other (joking). Daughter is 7 day shift worker so caring/minding pretty full on at times
We are self funded retirees with no chance of getting pension. Property owned since 1971 so no CGT issues.
We never went ahead with new digs closer to town

Problem
Just put my step dad into nursing home and mum will follow soon. Just realised that if we end up in nursing home for a long enough period our funds would be exhausted but we would still have family home as as an asset which will upset apple cart as it now my daughters home along with grandkids
Just enquired at local conveyancer and about $40K to transfer.

Options
1. Just leave as is and she pick up house as part of estate and in accord with Will when we both pass and hope it does not become an asset problem before then
2. Can we have a crack at SD exception under 'Natural Love and Affection
3. Would adding her name on title help
4. Just suck it up and pay $40K SD

Anyone else had experience in this regards or can point to discussions in this forum
Thanks

 

You need legal advice as there are many issues you may not be aware of.

Somethings to consider:
1. what if your daughter has a family law divorce or separation later
2 what if she wants to rent it out (now its CGT exempt)
3. What if she marries or enters a relationship
4. what if she predeceases you
5. what if she sells it
6. Should she buy it off you at full market value with you gifting the money instead
7. You couldn't leave it to her via a testamentary trust
etc

Once gifted it is out of your control. Tax effective strategies are also limited. There may be better ways to do something similar. I don't know of any stamp duty exemptions for 'love and affection' in vic - but there may be some.

 

Sell the house and use the funds to first travel around Australia and then the world. Stay in luxurious hotels at every opportunity. Indulge in the finest food and wine. Pamper yourselves in massages and facials. Visit exotic places where you two can just marvel at what the world has to offer.

After about two years, return to Oz, rock up to your daughter's place with suit cases in hand..."sorry love, can your mum and I crash here till we find another place?"

 

Yes - but then we stuck with minding the grandkids again. And all the discipline we have pumped into them (grandparents do that) would be lost and they would most probably be uncontrollable brats

 

Is the land being used for primary production?

See DUTIES ACT 2000 - SECT 56 Transfers of farms to relatives or charities
for the exemption.

 

hi @pete51 how would transferring the home ownership to your daughter help her? And what about you folks? She still has the benefits of living in a house mortgage free. If you are in good health, enjoy the fruits of your labour first because you deserve it.

 

Longish story, but about 5 years ago looking forward I realised I could not keep looking after the 10 acres down the track. At that time I was 62 and wife 64. We were also starting to do some estate planning and wanted to 'disperse' some funds to kids ( not to splurge, but to build up their own super and for education bonds for their kids).
We have always viewed our money as family money. There was enough to go around, all of it through hard work (no spoon in mouth here). My wife did not retire till 67, me a bit earlier as was chief babysitter while daughter at work. Anyway other daughters got a share of our savings and one got the home, which coincided with single mum bit. We kept enough to keep ourselves comfortable
5 years down track still looking after the ten acres (have purchased some 'boys toys' to make life easier like tractor with front end loader and back hoe and a wood splitter amongst other things). Anyway have just realised that there be a problem down track with being long term in nursing home. Had an uncle that was injured in a car accident and was 15 years in nursing home. But he had few assets so gov't footed bill, but had he had a mill or so it would have been pretty much wiped out. That is what is concerning me now. If this happened to me home would be treated as asset presenting issues if our money exhausted in nursing home. I would have basically been an 'Indian Giver' with giving home to our daughter.
I had thought it would have been SD exempt when transferring as a gift, but seems not.
Actually looking after my family is enjoying the fruits of my labour. They went without when young as I was always at work. Remember my wife bringing kids in so we could have a birthday party for one of them in a park near work because I was still there till late at night

 

No - there was a time way early on in the 70's when we could have got primary producer status, but things changed and you really needed something that was going to make money, which on 10 acres would have been a quite intensive undertaking. If I had jumped quick when we moved here could have managed it, but didn't even have money to put a fence around the place then

 

Hi mate been through this. You will need to pay stamp duty and will not be exempt.
But look at it this way, you are going to be saving a mint by paying 40k now, and have complete control of the asset by your daughter without government taking 380-550k per person in care, or 6.28% weekly fees.
Just be sure you have enough funds aside in case you change your mind and don't want to go to a nursing home yourself one day. Some things are not fully covered by government, if a full time nurse is required it's 70-95 per hour. Just have enough aside for unforeseen.