Do I Get Rebates On Investment Property?

If you are renting out a property to a tenant, you may be eligible for Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and the Federal Rebate.

The REC’s are deducted from the cost of the system, so you do not have to pay upfront. However, you need to apply for the $1,600 Federal Government solar hot water rebate directly. It is designed for a principal place of residence. That means you cannot claim it if your property is used for holiday rental.

It us up to you to decide whether you are going to claim the $1,600 yourself or if you want to let your tenant do that.

Why would you let the tenant claim the rebate?

This was the criteria for the old federal solar hot water rebate (until 2 February 2009). The new rebate is not means tested any more, so you can disregard the information below.

One of the criteria to receive the federal rebate is an income test. If you and your partner have had more than $100,000 taxable income in the last financial year, you will not be eligible for it.

That is the ideal opportunity to pass that rebate on to your tenants and let them claim it. You are not losing out, they are winning and it will be a lot easier to increase their rent by $10 a week.

That increase would repay you for putting solar hot water in. Your tenants are better off, because they receive the full rebate as cash now ($1,600), have the reduced energy costs and only have a rent increase of $500 per year.

Related Topics

• Solar power rebates in limbo until at least August
  The Federal Government’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme was delayed by the Senate last Thursday (18 June) and will not be voted on until at least August. For people wanting...
  
  
• Update on applications for $8000 solar power rebates
  The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts has now completed checking all the applications for the $8000 solar power rebate under the Solar Homes and Communities Plan. ...
  
  

Tags: solar hot water

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 4:47 pm and is filed under FAQ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.