Buying Property With SMSF: The Money Rules

First, the boundary. FAA Property is a licensed Queensland real estate agency, not a financial adviser, tax adviser or SMSF compliance adviser, and no FAA entity holds a financial services licence. What follows is the ATO's rule, dated, and your own position is a registered tax agent's.

From 1 July 2026 the general concessional cap is $32,500, indexed to average weekly ordinary time earnings. That covers employer contributions, salary sacrifice, and personal contributions you claim a deduction for. Two funds don't buy two caps.

After-tax money has its own cap, $130,000 for 2026-27. Bring-forward lifts the after-tax one: under 75 you may be able to use three years of that cap in one year, triggered by going over the annual amount, with the size and period set by your total super balance. Carry-forward lifts the concessional cap instead: if your total super balance is under $500,000 on 30 June of the previous financial year, you may be able to draw on unused amounts from earlier years, and they expire after five years.

Then the number that can shut the door. The general transfer balance cap indexed on 1 July 2026, from $2 million to $2.1 million, per the ATO notice published 19 February 2026.

That flows through to total super balance thresholds, which drive the non-concessional cap, bring-forward, carry-forward, the work test exemption, the spouse tax offset and co-contributions. If your total super balance at the end of the previous year is at or above that cap, your non-concessional cap is nil, and anything paid in is excess.

Read the timing of it and the shape becomes clear: it catches you once your balance is large enough to buy outright. One more thing about the source. The ATO's caps page still showed $2 million on 12 August 2026, so use the notice.

The qualifier in that heading carries the weight. Non-complying funds, and non-arm's length income, are taxed at 45 percent, the top marginal rate.

Concessional contributions land in the fund's assessable income and are taxed at 15 percent too, while non-concessional contributions generally aren't. On the way out, a complying fund gets a CGT discount of one third on an asset held at least 12 months. Capital losses only offset gains.

FAA can model what a property costs to hold. What a fund would pay is a tax agent's job.

Income from assets supporting a retirement phase income stream can be exempt. The ATO calls it exempt current pension income.

The deduction side switches off with it, and a fund with both accumulation and pension members may have to apportion expenses.

That's as far as this page goes.

SMSFs have to deal at arm's length: prices at true market value, income at a market rate of return. Since 1 July 2018 expenses count too, where a fund's costs are lower than arm's length would expect, including a cost of nothing.

The ATO's own example of a specific expense is maintenance on a rental property. Where the expense is specific, all income from that asset becomes non-arm's length income. Where it's general, accountant fees for example, it's twice the gap between what was paid and market value.

So the discount is the risk. A favour from a member who happens to be a tradesperson is the exact shape the rule was written for. FAA coordinates maintenance as a paid third party at market rates. The ATO points to LCR 2021/2 and PCG 2020/5 for the detail, which this page doesn't cover.

A trustee can only accept allowable contributions: an accepted type, the right age, and the member's tax file number.

Then the clock: a contribution has to be allocated to the member's account within 28 days of the end of the month it arrives. Then age. A fund generally can't accept what the ATO calls other contributions for a member 75 or older, and a member turning 75 has 28 days from the end of that month. In specie counts too: buying an asset under market value gives the fund a contribution equal to the difference.

None of that is FAA's to run. It sits with the trustee and the fund's accountant.

FAA Property Pty Ltd is a licensed Queensland real estate agency, OFT licence 4220395, current to 5 June 2027, one office, in Maroochydore. A real estate licence isn't a financial services licence. FAA doesn't lend money.

In FAA's own published words:

FAA Property earns a commission from builders and developers when a property purchase proceeds. The strategy session itself costs you nothing. Because we're paid by the supply side, you should weigh our recommendations with that in mind.

Everything above is the ATO's, linked and dated. For the rules a fund has to meet, and the 10 August 2026 change, the full guide covers it.

Where you sit against these numbers isn't something this page can work out. That's the licensed conversation. Book an SMSF Property Strategy Call and bring your accountant's questions. FAA can model what a property costs to hold and make the introductions. Who pays is set out above.