Australia · 8 min read · Laddered Editorial · 4 Jul 2026
Buying a House With Your Parents or Siblings in Australia
More Australians are buying property with family to get through the door — parents with adult kids, siblings pooling their deposits. Here is how the title, the loan, the schemes and the tax really work, and the parts that catch people out.
- family
- finance
- australia
- co-ownership
This article is general information only and is not legal, financial, tax, or property advice. Consider advice from a qualified professional for your circumstances.
The new normal
A generation ago, having your mum on the title of your first home would have raised eyebrows. Now it barely rates a mention. With Sydney's median dwelling value now well past $1 million, buying with family has quietly become one of the main ways younger Australians get in at all. Research group Digital Finance Analytics has for years ranked the "Bank of Mum and Dad" among Australia's ten biggest home lenders by the value of the help parents hand out — support it estimates runs into the tens of billions of dollars.
Buying *with* family, though, is a different thing from being *helped* by family. If a parent simply chips in for the deposit, that is a gift or a loan, and it is worth reading our breakdown of gift versus loan versus equity before you decide. This article is about the other path: everyone goes on the title and genuinely co-owns.
In short: to co-buy with parents or siblings in Australia, you hold the title as tenants in common in shares that reflect what each person puts in, you're all liable for the loan, and if every buyer is a first-home buyer you may be able to use the First Home Guarantee. The rest is detail — but the detail is where families get caught.
Hold the title as tenants in common
For any family arrangement that isn't a couple, hold the title as tenants in common rather than joint tenants. Tenants in common lets each person own a defined percentage and leave it to whoever they choose; joint tenancy passes a dead owner's share straight to the others regardless of their will, which can accidentally cut out a spouse or other kids. It's also the only structure that records unequal shares on the title. Our co-ownership agreements guide covers the structures in full.
Working out who owns what
If a parent puts in 60% of the money and their daughter 40%, holding 60/40 as tenants in common keeps the ownership honest. The simplest fair method is to split ownership by each person's share of the total contribution. You can run your own numbers in the buying-together calculator, and there is more detail on unequal deposits here.
Two things to settle while you are at it. First, does the split reflect only the deposit, or the mortgage repayments too? A parent who fronts the deposit but makes none of the repayments, and a child who does the reverse, will end up owning something quite different in ten years if you let contributions move the shares. Second, write the agreed shares down, because a title percentage and a private understanding have a way of drifting apart.
Whose borrowing power, and who's liable?
Families usually buy together to boost borrowing power — two incomes on one application means the bank lends more than either person could alone. The catch is joint and several liability: on a standard joint loan each borrower is on the hook for the *entire* debt, not their slice of it, so if one person can't pay, the bank pursues the others for the lot. There's a slower cost too — when you next borrow on your own, most lenders count the whole joint debt against you while crediting you only your share of any rent, which can quietly wreck your borrowing power. So structure the borrowing deliberately, sometimes with separate loans that mirror the title split; property share loans walks through how.
Can family buy together under the First Home Guarantee?
This is where a lot of confusion lives, and the rules moved recently, so treat the specifics as a prompt to check rather than gospel.
Since 1 July 2023, joint applications under the First Home Guarantee have been open to friends and siblings, not just couples — the scheme dropped its old spouse-or-de-facto-only rule. A separate change from 1 October 2025 went further, scrapping the income caps and the annual place limits and lifting the price caps. The key word throughout is *eligible*: every applicant on a joint application generally has to be a first-home buyer. So two siblings who've both never owned can team up, but a parent who already owns usually can't be a co-buyer *under that scheme* without disqualifying it.
Where a parent already owns, families often use a guarantor arrangement instead — the parent's property secures part of the loan without them going on the new title. That is a genuinely different structure from co-ownership, with its own risks for the parent, and it is worth a separate conversation with a broker. Scheme caps, price limits and eligibility change from year to year; confirm the current rules before you count on them.
Tax and duty: the surprises
The parts that catch families out are almost always tax and duty.
Stamp (transfer) duty is assessed on the share each person acquires, and first-home-buyer concessions have traps. In several states the concession is all-or-nothing across the buyers, so a parent who has owned before can knock out the discount for the child who hasn't — though some states, like Queensland, let each buyer claim the concession on their own share. The thresholds differ by state and change often.
Capital gains tax is the other one. The family home is generally exempt while it's someone's main residence, but that exemption follows the person living there, not the whole title. A parent who co-owns a place they don't live in is typically holding an investment share, and their portion of any gain can attract CGT when they sell or get bought out — with the 50% discount usually available if they've held for more than twelve months. Land tax can also apply to an owner who doesn't live in the property.
The honest summary: model the tax and duty *before* you sign, with an accountant who can see the whole picture. It is far cheaper than discovering it at sale.
Agree the hard parts before you need to
Buying with family works right up until something changes — a marriage, a divorce, a death, a job interstate, or one owner just wanting their money out. Settle the hard parts while everyone's still getting along: how a share gets valued, who gets first right to buy it, how a buyout works, and what happens if someone can't pay. Get it into a co-ownership agreement and plan the exit up front. It's the cheapest insurance a family arrangement can buy.
Keeping it running
Once you're in, the day-to-day is unglamorous: everyone paying their share, costs splitting the way you agreed, and a record nobody disputes. That's the part Laddered handles — it holds each person's contributions and the shares you agreed in one place, so a deal built on family goodwill still has clear numbers behind it in year eight.
Common questions
Can I buy a house with my parents in Australia? Yes. You co-own by going on the title together — usually as tenants in common in shares that reflect what each person contributes — and you're jointly responsible for any loan. A co-ownership agreement sets out who pays what and what happens if someone wants out.
Can siblings buy a house together under the First Home Guarantee? Since 1 July 2023, two eligible first-home buyers, including siblings or friends, can apply jointly. Every applicant generally has to be a first-home buyer, so a sibling who already owns would disqualify the joint application.
Do you pay stamp duty and CGT when buying with family? Stamp duty is charged on the share each person acquires, and first-home concessions have state-by-state traps. A family member who co-owns a place they don't live in usually holds an investment share that can attract capital gains tax when it's sold.
This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice, and scheme and duty rules change regularly. Buying with family is one of the smarter moves a lot of Australians make — it just rewards doing the paperwork first. Get a broker across the loan and a solicitor across the title and the agreement.