UKH

Anyone able to shed any light on capital gains tax? in particular private residence relief and improvement cost estimates.

If I lived in a house for 9 years and then was forced to relocate an let the property out for 3 years, am I right in thinking that I can claim relief on the 9 years + the last 9 months so pay CGT on the 18.75% of the gains?

Secondly, I bought the property as a wreck and spent the majority of the 9 years living there fixing the place up installing a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, utility room, working boiler, decorating everything and new carpets.

Being a massive idiot and not really thinking about ever letting/selling the property I didn't really keep track of expenditure and only kept a few receipts, HMRC says I can supply "estimates" as final costs.  Anyone got any helpful tips on making these estimates? I understand that I can't claim in decoration but can I claim on carpets if the ones that were there originally were totally knackered?

Any help appreciated, the HMRC website is as clear as mud to me.

Otherwise can anyone suggest how much it would cost to get someone to look at this and if it would be worth my while.

Basically. There is (or was) also letting relief and you get an annual allowance of £6k.

It would probably cost a few hundred quid at most to get an accountant to do the calculations.  You have to declare and pay the gain pretty quickly after sale (90 days?) so an accountant can assist with that as well.  If you think of those fees as part of the costs of sale they’re negligible really.  The accountant probably can’t help with calculating the cost of work but might be able to give you an indication of how likely HMRC are to question any estimate you give them.

Thanks, it seems letting relief is only if you lived in part of the house and let the other part so I don't qualify for that.

Apparently I've got 60 days to inform them.

I'd recommend phoning HMRC's helpline. I had to do this on several occasions for the CGT section of my Self Assessment Return for '22-'23 and found them very helpful.