Buying another house before selling current one.

Zacwhite

Hi all, hope I can get some good advice on this. We have viewed a house we love and can just about to buy it from cash / investment reserves rather than go through the extended process of selling ours and almost inevitably losing this new one in the interim. 
I know about the 3% extra Stamp Duty payable on what would be classed as a second home but am I right in understanding that, as long as we do sell it within a 3 year period, then we will be able to reclaim all this extra cost back ?
Also, are there CGT implications when we do sell our current home ?

Really appreciate any feedback / views.

Thanks

E

rhino_horn

We've just done this exact same thing. We currently own two properties... completed on it in September.. plan to move into it the new year and sell our current one. 

No CGT to pay and yes you will get a stamp duty refund when you sell the first property.

Slithery

rhino_horn said:

No CGT to pay

This may be true in your case but it isn't a general rule. CGT always needs to be calculated it's just if the amount due is less than your yearly allowance there will be nothing to pay.

skycatcher

Did this last year. Got the stamp duty refunded quite quickly - our solicitor applied for it.

rhino_horn

Slithery said:

rhino_horn said:

No CGT to pay

This may be true in your case but it isn't a general rule. CGT always needs to be calculated it's just if the amount due is less than your yearly allowance there will be nothing to pay.

Not quite true....providing you have lived it full time the whole time you have owned it... no CGT to pay. (A few exceptions - e.g. rented some of it out etc - there is a handy tool on the link below)

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-selling-home

Slithery

rhino_horn said:

Slithery said:

rhino_horn said:

No CGT to pay

This may be true in your case but it isn't a general rule. CGT always needs to be calculated it's just if the amount due is less than your yearly allowance there will be nothing to pay.

Not quite true....providing you have lived it full time the whole time you have owned it... no CGT to pay.

Correct. But in both yours and the OP's case this isn't what has happened, the property hasn't been your main residence for the entirety of the time you've owned it so the CGT calculation needs to be done.

Whatdoiknow

Hi,

We are in a very similar situation as we have found a house we want to move into. We can buy it outright before selling our current home that we have lived in since we purchased it in January 1996.

The house we want to move in to needs modernising before we move in and we will be doing that over the next few months. We are also doing some cosmetic changes to our current home before we put it on the market as soon as we can move into our new home.

Had a look at the tax relief/selling your home details on the .Gov site form and reading that it seems to suggest we would not be liable for capital gains tax. We are fully aware of the extra stamp duty that we will have to pay as at the time of purchase we will be owning two homes, however on filling in the SDLT form we have received from our solicitor question 3 asks will we end up owning more than one dwelling which the answer is yes (until we sell our current home) it then goes on to ask how much is the interest in the other dwelling worth? Might be being a bit dim here but does it mean we own 100% or is it asking for the actual value as we don't know that until we get the house valued.

Question 10 asks do we intend to live in the new property as our only or main residence which only asks for a yes or no answer but our answer would be "yes once we have modernised it and have sold our current main residence" .

Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks 

SDLT_Geek

Whatdoiknow said:

Hi,

We are in a very similar situation as we have found a house we want to move into. We can buy it outright before selling our current home that we have lived in since we purchased it in January 1996.

The house we want to move in to needs modernising before we move in and we will be doing that over the next few months. We are also doing some cosmetic changes to our current home before we put it on the market as soon as we can move into our new home.

Had a look at the tax relief/selling your home details on the .Gov site form and reading that it seems to suggest we would not be liable for capital gains tax. We are fully aware of the extra stamp duty that we will have to pay as at the time of purchase we will be owning two homes, however on filling in the SDLT form we have received from our solicitor question 3 asks will we end up owning more than one dwelling which the answer is yes (until we sell our current home) it then goes on to ask how much is the interest in the other dwelling worth? Might be being a bit dim here but does it mean we own 100% or is it asking for the actual value as we don't know that until we get the house valued.

Question 10 asks do we intend to live in the new property as our only or main residence which only asks for a yes or no answer but our answer would be "yes once we have modernised it and have sold our current main residence" .

Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks 

Q3. The reason for asking about the value of the current home is that there is an exception from the 3% surcharge if the interest is worth less than £40,000.  So it should be enough to give a rough estimate of the value here.

Q10.  This is about whether you will qualify to get the 3% extra SDLT back when the current home is sold.  It might be best to write your answer in full so the solicitor is fully in the picture.

rexmedorum

SDLT_Geek said:

Whatdoiknow said:

Hi,

We are in a very similar situation as we have found a house we want to move into. We can buy it outright before selling our current home that we have lived in since we purchased it in January 1996.

The house we want to move in to needs modernising before we move in and we will be doing that over the next few months. We are also doing some cosmetic changes to our current home before we put it on the market as soon as we can move into our new home.

Had a look at the tax relief/selling your home details on the .Gov site form and reading that it seems to suggest we would not be liable for capital gains tax. We are fully aware of the extra stamp duty that we will have to pay as at the time of purchase we will be owning two homes, however on filling in the SDLT form we have received from our solicitor question 3 asks will we end up owning more than one dwelling which the answer is yes (until we sell our current home) it then goes on to ask how much is the interest in the other dwelling worth? Might be being a bit dim here but does it mean we own 100% or is it asking for the actual value as we don't know that until we get the house valued.

Question 10 asks do we intend to live in the new property as our only or main residence which only asks for a yes or no answer but our answer would be "yes once we have modernised it and have sold our current main residence" .

Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks 

Q3. The reason for asking about the value of the current home is that there is an exception from the 3% surcharge if the interest is worth less than £40,000.  So it should be enough to give a rough estimate of the value here.

Q10.  This is about whether you will qualify to get the 3% extra SDLT back when the current home is sold.  It might be best to write your answer in full so the solicitor is fully in the picture.

Q10 would be a yes, you'd be doing a bit of modernising first (how longg, few weeks? couple of months?) but you do intend to make it yourmain home. No harm in explaining the full picture to solicitor I guess

Whatdoiknow

rexmedorum said:

SDLT_Geek said:

Whatdoiknow said:

Hi,

We are in a very similar situation as we have found a house we want to move into. We can buy it outright before selling our current home that we have lived in since we purchased it in January 1996.

The house we want to move in to needs modernising before we move in and we will be doing that over the next few months. We are also doing some cosmetic changes to our current home before we put it on the market as soon as we can move into our new home.

Had a look at the tax relief/selling your home details on the .Gov site form and reading that it seems to suggest we would not be liable for capital gains tax. We are fully aware of the extra stamp duty that we will have to pay as at the time of purchase we will be owning two homes, however on filling in the SDLT form we have received from our solicitor question 3 asks will we end up owning more than one dwelling which the answer is yes (until we sell our current home) it then goes on to ask how much is the interest in the other dwelling worth? Might be being a bit dim here but does it mean we own 100% or is it asking for the actual value as we don't know that until we get the house valued.

Question 10 asks do we intend to live in the new property as our only or main residence which only asks for a yes or no answer but our answer would be "yes once we have modernised it and have sold our current main residence" .

Any comments or advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks 

Q3. The reason for asking about the value of the current home is that there is an exception from the 3% surcharge if the interest is worth less than £40,000.  So it should be enough to give a rough estimate of the value here.

Q10.  This is about whether you will qualify to get the 3% extra SDLT back when the current home is sold.  It might be best to write your answer in full so the solicitor is fully in the picture.

Q10 would be a yes, you'd be doing a bit of modernising first (how longg, few weeks? couple of months?) but you do intend to make it yourmain home. No harm in explaining the full picture to solicitor I guess

Thanks SDLT_Geek and rexmedorum.

The new house isn't falling to bits but needs a complete make over.  As well as fully decorating it needs a new bathroom, kitchen, a downstairs cloakroom turning into a shower/toilet, new flooring throughout and hopefully a wall taking out to make a larger kitchen so will likely take several months and as yet until we exchange contracts we haven't organised the people in to do it yet as it is a new area we are moving to and we don't know who the best contractors are.

Our current house hasn't been valued yet but going on house prices in this area I would assume a value around £275,000 so will easily exceed the £40,000 limit.

I did ask the solicitor about what we should put for Q10 and he wasn't sure and in the bumf we have received from them they state they aren't tax experts   and suggested we speak to our accountant  we haven't got one. 

  

Scotbot

Slithery said:

rhino_horn said:

Slithery said:

rhino_horn said:

No CGT to pay

This may be true in your case but it isn't a general rule. CGT always needs to be calculated it's just if the amount due is less than your yearly allowance there will be nothing to pay.

Not quite true....providing you have lived it full time the whole time you have owned it... no CGT to pay.

Correct. But in both yours and the OP's case this isn't what has happened, the property hasn't been your main residence for the entirety of the time you've owned it so the CGT calculation needs to be done.

Not sure were you get that idea from, the posters don't say which house they would be living in.  It's common to live in the original property whilst renovating the new one