Selling or renting and more

[Leeedin]

Hi all we are going to be immigrating soon  and wanted to ask some questions. 

 

1. Should we sell our house or rent it out?

2. Should we cancel our south african policies or keep paying them in Sa 

3. I have 2 smell children 4 years old and 15 months, what age do children start nursery school in Oz and play school? Do most moms stay at home with the kids as day care seems so expensive and of so is there a programme for child development to follow? Any feedback would be appreciated 

[Tntaglia]

Hi there

 

We sold our house (actually managed to get the sale about 2 weeks before we moved over, that was hectic!) - and would definitely do so again. We've been landlords before when we moved from CPT to Joburg and couldn't sell our house, and it's a nightmare, renters don't take care of your property and in the end you're probably going to sell anyway in a year or two or three. Depends on the property though, if we owned like a 2 bed apartment in a highly sought after area (close to a university for example) we may have considered keeping it for the rental income.

 

I'm still paying my SA life insurance policy, mostly because it has some guarantees that are just not available in the market anymore, so giving it up would not make sense financially. But cancelled everything else. Life insurance in Australia through your super is much cheaper than what you pay in SA anyway.

 

Can't help with the schooling question as my kids were 8 and 11 when we landed - but among the people I know most people pay for day care using government subsidies as far as possible (if you have PR you qualify for these, and how much you get back depends on income and how many hours you work). It will depend on your career I guess, whether you can afford to not work and have to rebuild a career later on.

 

good luck!

[ChrisH]

Something else to consider, if you rent your property out in South Africa the chances of SARS applying that expat tax to you is pretty good.  You'll have to file tax returns for that rental income.