Hi, I'm not sure whether this should be in Property or Legal, so I'll put it in both! My parents are in their 80s and both have various ailments and mobility issues but are still living in a second floor flat (with no lift) about an hour and a half drive away from both my sister and me. Recently they have both had falls and other health issues which have made them realise that they need to live closer so that my sister and I can help them and also so that they can buy somewhere which is ground floor. The thing is they have lived in their flat for well over 30 years and it is in a bad state, no central heating, no fitted kitchen, in desperate need of decoration and is also a real mess, very cluttered and just not at all looked after. This is the main reason they have put off doing anything about selling it as they just cannot face putting it on the market and involving estate agents etc while it is in such a mess and they are still living in it. They own the flat with no mortgage and it is probably worth about £220k (more like £250k if it was not in such a terrible state). A small house has come up for sale in the same road as my sister which would be ideal for them and it turns out that my father actually has enough money in the bank to buy the house outright without selling the flat. They are considering buying this house whilst they still own the flat so that they are not under time pressure to sell the flat and once they have moved out they (well mainly my sister and I) can gadually clear the flat, perhaps update it a bit and just make it a bit less of a mess! I have no idea what sort of time-scale they are imagining, whether it's a couple of months and then put the flat on the market, or whether it might be quite a few months before we culd really expect an agent to sell it because it really is totally unmodernised at the moment. The thing is it suddenly occurred to me that if they are no longer living in it when they sell it, it might be counted as a second home and might therefore incur capital gains tax (or whichever tax it is!) so they may lose a sizeable part of the value of the property simply so they can have time to move out gradually and clear it out before selling it. Is there a time limit on this sort of thing? Would it instantly be counted as a second home and incur CGT or is there a period during which it would still be counted as their main home having lived there for over 30 years? And are there any other legal or financial problems with this plan of theirs that we haven't thought of??