In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Australian Government came out with the Homebuilder grant to stimulate construction. This grant is managed by the state/territory governments and is also able to be awarded on top of the first home owner’s grant (FHOG) for eligible applicants and eligible construction projects. In an effort to assess whether relocating a Queenslander was a viable option for taking advantage of these grants, I’ve done some digging and came across a story about a pioneering battler who didn’t let the gubmint come along and rob her of her hard earned grant money. It’s a good lesson in knowing your stuff and sticking to your guns and always reading the fineprint. Since I am located in Queensland, I will only be assessing Queensland for now, but you can do your own due diligence for your state and you might find the rules and tribunal appeal options are similar.

image of rustic house gable — **Post topics**

Are relocation homes eligible for the FHOG?
What do you need to know about the FHOG for relocation homes?
When does the First Home Owners Grant get paid?

Are relocation homes eligible for FHOG?

In 2016, the Qld Dept of Treasury that manages the FHOG put out an official notice clarifying the definition of a "new home". This included directly calling out that relocation homes were eligible for FHOG.

They even give a specific example that is kind of ambiguous but relevant for removal homes:

Hot diggity dog, it sounds like we are in business, but why would they put out such a weirdly specific ruling that explains the exact question I had? Awesome but very strange.

When I dug around trying to find out more about how this came about I saw that little superscript 19 next to the “so long as it has not been occupied or sold as a place of residence since being fixed to the new site¹⁹” which led me to a random single line of text buried in the footnotes. ¹⁹Commissioner of State Revenue v Bielefeld [2016] QCATA 46.

Ohh, now it’s getting interesting. I’ll save you the boring legal speak, but the trail led me to documentation of the original court case which triggered this whole ruling clarification from the Government which is actually pretty interesting. It appears that after a first homeowner named Ms Bielefeld, applied for a FHOG for her newly relocated Queenslander to a vacant block in Toowoomba, the Commissioner of State Revenue (who administers the grant) denied her application. Ms B had paid for the land, paid for the house, paid to move the house, and spent up to $80k on top getting it up to snuff, but the commissioner denied the claim. Feeling understandably peeved, Ms B then went to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal to appeal that decision as she thought the rules should apply to her since the house had never been lived in on the new lot. After reviewing all the circumstances, the Tribunal ended up agreeing with Ms B and assessed that she was owed the grant under the current rules. So, probably a little peeved at this point, the Commissioner counter-appealed the Tribunal saying they were right all along in denying the grant as they didn’t consider the house new. However, this final review of their appeal was dismissed with the Tribunal stating in a summary that:

"the contract was in respect of a comprehensive home building contract... the substantial work in transforming the building into a home under the contract was sufficient to equate to building a home from the start...in its completed state it had not previously been occupied or sold as a place of residence and is therefore a “new home”... (and) therefore found that it was a comprehensive home building contract to build a new home."
Source: Commissioner of State Revenue v Bielefeld [2016] QCATA 46

So not only did she get denied initially, but with the QCAT finding she was eligible, they wanted to appeal that decision. In the end though the appeal failed and QCAT upheld their stance that circumstances like this ARE eligible for the grant. There is more info in this news article if you are interested but the long and the short of it is, that since that ruling, the Government had to then turnaround and clarify that relocation houses are just as valid for the grant. This is going to be super important and helpful in understanding the applicability of HomeBuilder which we will touch on later. But in short, it appears that the answer is a resounding YES, you can get FHOG for relocation homes if you meet all the other eligibility.

What you need to know about the First Home Owners Grant for relocation homes?

I found out a few things that I think are helpful to know about FHOG:

1. FHOG in QLD can cover relocation homes if you do it yourself OR if you do it with a builder

“a comprehensive home building contract made by the owner of land in Queensland, or a person who will on completion of the contract be the owner of land in Queensland, to have a new home built on the land.”, OR
“the building of a new home in Queensland by an owner builder”

2. If you are building in regional Queensland, you can also get another $5k on top through the Regional Home Booster.

Other states/territories also have similar programs, search for “regional” or

3. You through your bank/lender but you can also apply on your own directly to the office of State Revenue

During COVID19, they have even begun allowing you to submit the forms via email which also helps

4. You can stack the grant with the Homebuilder grant and get both

5. If your state offers stamp duty concessions, you can also receive these

With relocation homes, since it’s most often relocating a home to vacant land, many states/territories have a vacant land stamp duty concession if you plan to build your first home on the land.
However, if you want to rent out one of the rooms in your first year, then this may not be applicable. So do your homework

**FHOG Links by State**

Select Your State or Territory: Australian Capital Territory | New South Wales | Northern Territory | Queensland | South Australia | Tasmania | Victoria | Western Australia

When does the First Home Owners Grant get paid?

Victor Kalinowski from Blackk Finance has a great visual on this for general FHOG applicants in their comprehensive FHOG Guide.

In our case, a relocation home is considered a brand new home, where we are applying direct to the Office of State Revenue, and as such, it is actually not able to be paid until after the home is ready to live in which is once you get your final inspection done (Form 21 from the building certifier).

For a relocation home then, the FHOG is not something you can really rely on for any upfront deposit for the removal or anything. Basically, in QLD, it will be a $15k bonus back once you get approval to move into the removal home. This could then be used to reduce any principal on mortgages for the land, or to pay back a loan used to purchase the removal home/construction costs. It could also be used toward any outstanding work that remains outside of the inspection? Landscaping, renovations, furniture, etc.

All in all it’s still massive news that the removal homes are eligible for the FHOG and I for one am very grateful for the efforts of Ms B in helping to get this ruling overturned.

If you have tips from other states or even personal experiences, drop a comment or shoot us a message!