Possibly Selling a house I Once Lived In

Cptralls

I am considering selling a house I once lived in. I have owned the house for just under ten years and lived in it during the first two years and rented it out the remaining time. 

The house is valued around £50k above what I paid for it. I'm aware that £12500 is exempt due to my tax allowance, however, I'm also aware a further allowance is available due to living in the house for the first two years, my questions are as follows:

1. What do I need to do to prove that I was living in the house for two years? 

2. What difference does living in the property for two years make to the tax owed? 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

[Deleted User]

Gain £50000. Owned for 120 months. You lived in it for 24 months and you can add 9 as you so did meaning 29/120 is the relief available as PPR. This is 12083 leaving 37917 as your gain before personal exemption of 12300, not 12500! The remaining 25617 is chargeable at 18%, 28% or a combination of the two depending on your other income. 

You must report and pay the tax due within 60 days of completion and declare it on your self-assessment tax return.

Cptralls

[Deleted User] said:

Gain £50000. Owned for 120 months. You lived in it for 24 months and you can add 9 as you so did meaning 29/120 is the relief available as PPR. This is 12083 leaving 37917 as your gain before personal exemption of 12300, not 12500! The remaining 25617 is chargeable at 18%, 28% or a combination of the two depending on your other income. 

You must report and pay the tax due within 60 days of completion and declare it on your self-assessment tax return.

What do I need to produce to prove I lived in the property? 

[Deleted User]

Utility bills, Council tax payment etc 

Jeremy535897

Presumably you will have told HMRC what your home address was when you lived there, and you will have told them when it changed. It would be very unlikely for HMRC to ask for evidence of 8 year old council tax bills etc.

[Deleted User]

Jeremy535897 said:

Presumably you will have told HMRC what your home address was when you lived there, and you will have told them when it changed. It would be very unlikely for HMRC to ask for evidence of 8 year old council tax bills etc.

Yes - one could say that it’s unlikely HMRC will come back and ask for such evidence but the last time I did the follow up was - ‘how would HMRC know differently if I declared that it was my PPR for longer?’

p00hsticks

[Deleted User] said:

 personal exemption of 12300, not 12500!

That is assuming you manage to complete any sale before April 5th next year - the CGT allowance for 2023-4 is going to drop to £6000 (assuming the relevant legislation goes through). Given that the OP is only just considering selling, that this is usuallly the quietest time of year for house sales and that the housing market is less than bouyant at present. that might be a stretch.

Jeremy535897

[Deleted User] said:

Jeremy535897 said:

Presumably you will have told HMRC what your home address was when you lived there, and you will have told them when it changed. It would be very unlikely for HMRC to ask for evidence of 8 year old council tax bills etc.

Yes - one could say that it’s unlikely HMRC will come back and ask for such evidence but the last time I did the follow up was - ‘how would HMRC know differently if I declared that it was my PPR for longer?’

If they looked at the address records they had in the past, they could enquire.

silvercar

Jeremy535897 said:

[Deleted User] said:

Jeremy535897 said:

Presumably you will have told HMRC what your home address was when you lived there, and you will have told them when it changed. It would be very unlikely for HMRC to ask for evidence of 8 year old council tax bills etc.

Yes - one could say that it’s unlikely HMRC will come back and ask for such evidence but the last time I did the follow up was - ‘how would HMRC know differently if I declared that it was my PPR for longer?’

If they looked at the address records they had in the past, they could enquire.

Any idea how long hmrc keep records? I would be surprised if it was beyond 6 years. 

JPin

Would HMRC really look at records from as far back as 2012?

p00hsticks

silvercar said:

Jeremy535897 said:

[Deleted User] said:

Jeremy535897 said:

Presumably you will have told HMRC what your home address was when you lived there, and you will have told them when it changed. It would be very unlikely for HMRC to ask for evidence of 8 year old council tax bills etc.

Yes - one could say that it’s unlikely HMRC will come back and ask for such evidence but the last time I did the follow up was - ‘how would HMRC know differently if I declared that it was my PPR for longer?’

If they looked at the address records they had in the past, they could enquire.

Any idea how long hmrc keep records? I would be surprised if it was beyond 6 years. 

I suspect some government organisation somewhere has them (or access to them) going back quite some time. 
I can't remember what it was I was doing (possibly a passport application - certainly something official) and one of the online security questions I was asked was to select which of the three given addresses I had previously lived at. The only correct one  shown was one I hadn't lived at in well over a decade.