• Individual houses or units;
  
• Units or apartments as part of multiple-unit blocks;
  
• Commercial properties of all types and sizes.
  
  

Our approach is to prepare Tax Depreciation Schedules/Reports in accordance with our understanding of the rules and guidelines as laid down by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and/or the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (AIQS) as far as possible and applicable. Due to the complexity of the rules and potential number of variables in circumstances, there are numerous instances where a particular issue may be open to interpretation. Wherever such an instance becomes apparent during our investigations our normal approach is to qualify our report to state the basis of our interpretation, or to identify the issue and recommend that the Client's accountant or taxation advisers make a determination on the approach to be taken.

Information required to enable us to prepare Tax Depreciation Schedules/Reports can be summarised as follows:

• Address of the property;
  
• Date of purchase of the property;
  
• Purchase price of the property;
  
• Date from which the property was made available for rental purposes;
  
• Date of construction of building improvements if known (if not we will carry out investigations wherever possible);
  
• Actual construction cost of building improvements if known, plus whatever details of same if available (ie, if the property owner has had the property built or additions, extensions, etc. carried out ; if no costs or details are known we will carry out investigations and estimates);
  
• Property owner's contact details (postal address, phone/fax numbers, email address, etc);
  
• Floor plan of the property (generally a real estate agents marketing plan is adequate ; if no floor plan is provided our fee will need to reflect the additional time required to measure and draw up a simple floor plan);
  
• Contact details to enable us to carry out an inspection of the property (this can either be the tenant or managing agent as considered appropriate ; we will then arrange a mutually convenient time to carry out an inspection. In most cases our inspection can be completed within 15 – 30 minutes to enable us to record details);
  
• Should the property be a unit or apartment as part of multiple-unit blocks we would need plans of the overall development in order to assess the appropriate share of "common works/cost" (eg, stairwells, corridors, lifts, etc) that the investor may be entitled to claim in addition to the costs directly associated with the particular unit;
  
• Any other information that the client believes may be relevant in regards to the circumstances and intended use of our report.
  
• With regard to the fee that Lees Cadman charge for preparation of Tax Depreciation Schedules/Reports, there are a number of factors which have a direct bearing on the manhours required and hence the fee, including:
  
• Location of the property (ie, travel time needs to be built into the fee);
  
• Size and complexity of the property (eg, a large property with a number of extensions built at different times requires more time and effort to assess than a simple property);
  
• Extent and quality of information made available (in principle the ATO requires the quantity surveyor to take into consideration all information that can reasonably be provided by Client or obtained by the quantity surveyor from other sources and/or his own investigations);
  
• Additional work in assessing "common works and costs" in the case of a unit or apartment as part of multiple-unit blocks, unless Lees Cadman has had prior involvement and information on the overall development (where another quantity surveyor has been involved with the overall development we would normally suggest the investor obtain a fee from that party);
  
• Special considerations due to the particular circumstances.
  
  

Clearly, we need to take the individual circumstances into account before we could provide a fixed lump sum fee for any particular property.


Fee quotations or further details and information on the above can be readily provided on request to contact us.