Capital Gains tax Help

mrlossyman

Hi, After reading through the previous posts I am confused and need help.

I purchased a house in my sole name in 2001. I lived in the house for three years and moved out in May 2004. In June 2004 I rented out the property when I moved to rented accomodation in London. The property was rented until September 2006 when the tennants moved out. The proprety has now been sold (It has been empty for 6 months) and I am wondering if I need to pay CGT. As I said I lived in the property for three years, rented for 30 months and it has been empty for the last six months. When I was renting I was breaking even with payments, so none profit.

Any help, advice would be really appreciated.

Regards,

Carl

Murdina

It is not an easy sum to do! You are exempt for the period of time you lived there. Because of this the last 36 months are also exempt. You are not entitled to a further exemption for periods of time when let because you did not return to live there. However you can claim another letting relief. This one is the lowest of the actual gain after the exemption for privater residence relief, the amount of private residence relief or £40,000. You would also be entitled to non busines asset taper relief. The gain is the difference between purchase and sale prices allowing for stamp duty, legal fees, estate agent and any improvements (not repairs). Take that figure and multipy by the months you actually lived there plus 36 and divide it by total no of months you owned the property. That is the exempt bit of the gain. Then see if you can claim the letting relief I outline above and hopefully you might be below the annual exemption for CGT before needing to worry about taper relief. If you are not in self assessment you must tell your tax office about any gain by next 5 October. It's really easy isn't it!.......

CLAPTON

in my view you are exempt for the time you lived in it and because you lived there once you are also exempt for the last three years.
hence you are totally exempt as it's less than three years since you last lived there (well to May 2007 anyway )