CGT- Which solicitor's fees?

gnomeathome

I sold a property last year (not my home) and made a gain. Buyer A pulled out, and the solicitor charged me 50% of his usual fee. Buyer B completed a few weeks later (all within 2014-15 tax year).
When working out the gain, can I include both of the solicitor's bills? The bill for Buyer B is clearly eligible, but I'm not sure if the bill for Buyer A is a cost of sale (as opposed to a cost of a non-sale).

jimmo

Tricky question, that.
The law says that in order to be allowable such incidental costs have to be incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the disposal.
Section 38(2) TCGA 1992
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/12/section/38/enacted
It is then arguable whether what you did was a single venture of selling the property, involving 2 potential buyers, or 2 separate ventures, one failed and one successful.
In the former case all your legal fees would be allowable. In the latter only the legal costs of the successful sale would be allowable.
In my days as a taxman I would not have challenged legal fees incurred within a year of the actual sale but that was nearly 10 years ago.

SeniorSam

I would have thought that the same solicitors cost in total were allowable. After all it is the costs of selling that property in total. Possible to solicitors could let you have a receipt for 'TOTAL' legal fees?