thoughts..., page-14

"You will have to check this, as some people have disagreed with me, but I beleive your investment property will be Capital Gains Tax free for the first 6 years."

LE

That is a very misleading statement

For a property to be CGT free it must be your main residence. You can rent your main residence out for 6 years and still maintain it's main residence status.

However the intention at the time of purchasing the property MUST BE as a main residence for the purpose of living in and you may be required to prove this fact.

The rules are slightly different between buying an established property and newly built property but basically to ensure the primary residence status you really do need the property to become your place of residence as soon as praticle after settlement.

The longer you live in the property the stronger your case will be, in the case of a newly constructed home you must reside there for at least 3 months. The shorter the time in regard to an established home the hard the case is to prove

Just as an example if a property was purchased and a 4 month settlement was argeed to and during this time the puchaser recieved a job transfer to the other side of the country. Though difficult to prove the person may still have a case to argue that the place was intended to be a main residence.

It would be a near impossible case to prove if the property was purchased in another state or rented out from the time of settlement and there had not been an unforeseen change in circumstances