SDLT and CGT on combining 2 houses into 1.

NervyBuyer

House converted into 2, owned by separate people. If the owner-occupier of one buys the other and reconverts back to one house where they continue to live

1. Is there additional rate SDLT to pay on the purchase (guessing yes as the buyer would own another property at the time of purchase)?
2. What would the CGT situation on future sale of the one combined house be (under current rules of course)? Would part of the value be liable to CGT as it wasn't the owner's main residence during the period the 2 'addresses' still exist as separate properties?

Thanks for any advice!

Bookworm105

how long will the works take to physically make them into one (main) home?

NervyBuyer

Depends what counts as 'one home'. The initial work is trivial, just knocking through one plasterboard partition on the ground floor, but there would be further work to sort out utility supplies so they were all on one meter, making the unnecessary front door into a window (or other alteration) and at some point removing the second kitchen (some friends of mine did this and left the 2nd kitchen as a utility so maybe that is not a requirement to make it count as one house). Plus whatever paperwork is needed (at the Land Registry?) to remove the second address as a separate dwelling.