Capital Gains Tax and 'Market Value'

neatsweet

I need to pay CGT on a house I inherited and sold last year. When the house was in probate it was valued by an auctioneer who valued it low but said that it could achieve a higher price at auction. Other estate agents at the time valued it at at least £17,000 higher. The auctioneers valuation was the figure used for the probate process since my family also wanted to avoid paying more tax. I inherited the property (through a deed of variation) and sold it 2 years later when it was worth more. Do I take the auctioneers valuation as the true 'market value' or do I use the higher estate agents figure? Trouble is that anything in writing that my family had from the estate agents has now been destroyed. I would like to avoid paying more than I have to. Is there any way I could prove it was indeed worth more and how do I do that easily?

Pumpkinface_2

Well we'd all like to avoid paying tax. But I would not recommend doing what you suggest as you migh be accused of tax fraud. i.e. using one valuation to avoid IHT and then a different one to reduce CGT.

00ec25

absolutely as pumpkin says, the probate valuation was obtained for a reason - it establishes the market value at the time you became its owner and is the base cost for your CGT, do not try tax evasion !