CGT Property Disposal (Home let whilst employed elsewhere)

Sand_castle

I let out my home whilst working overseas and elsewhere in the UK during which time I lived in rented accommodation paid for by my employer. (All rental taxes were declared and paid!). I subsequently moved back into my home for a few years before selling.

I have looked at the HMRC CGT pages and it is unclear what reliefs apply to the gain, specifically whether I have full Private Residence Relief as my circumstances fall within the following paragraph :


“If you have one home or you nominated your home, you get private residence relief if you were away from it for:

any reason for periods adding up to 3 years
up to 4 years if you had to live away from home in the UK for work
any period if you were working outside the UK”

Or whether the period it was let has to be excluded from private residence relief even though it falls within the above criteria and lettings relief applied to the period it was let instead



Can anyone help please?

Nicola_Ed

Hi

The link below may help, The 3 year period is now 18 months. If you need any more help you will need to post the relevant purchase and sale details and dates.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-home/let-out-part-of-home

You need to work out the gain by looking at the qualifying period of the availible reliefs and then claim the letttings relief in form of £'s.

booksurr

you are correct in assuming that you can claim under the absence rules as (it appears) the only reason you moved was because your employer required that you move in the performance of your duties. Crucially you didn't live elsewhere just out of personal convenience, but on instruction of your employer

you meet the rule for having physically occupied the property as your main home both before and after the absence caused by work related accommodation elsewhere

the fact the property was let whilst you were away is irrelevant,

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cgmanual/cg65050.htm

there is no time limit whilst you were employed outside of the UK and living in accommodation abroad at the employer's instructions

once back in the UK there is a 4 year time limit whilst living elsewhere

so provided your time living elsewhere in the UK was no more than 4 years (the period abroad is unlimited) then your entire ownership would be exempt under PRR and you claim PRR and not letting relief. If the UK period was more than 4 years you would need to claim letting relief instead.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cgmanual/cg65040.htm

jimmo

booksurr wrote: »

once back in the UK there is a 4 year time limit whilst living elsewhere
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cgmanual/cg65040.htm

Not quite right there is a 4 year time limit whilst living and working elsewhere in the UK.
There's also a 3 year time limit for any reason.
You then need to prioritise those to gain the maximum relief. If that doesn't cover the whole gain you would then look to use letting relief to cover any periods when the house was let but not covered by absences.
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/cgmanual/CG65065.htm

kidmugsy

For any year when tax considerations seemed complicated, I used to pay an accountant to do my tax return. Money well spent, in my view. Just ensure that you fully understand what he does so you could do it yourself if the position should ever recur.

Across a whole career I found a need to do it only a few times.