CAPITAL GAINS TAX

[Sonlyme2]

Hello.
Eight years ago I moved area to join my partner. I moved into my partners house and bought a rental with the proceeds of my previous property and rented it out. My situation broke down 15 months back and I moved in to live at my rental house. I am now considering selling up to return to my home town. I am trying to work out what I will be able to afford. Will I have to pay Capital Gains Tax?

Not if it's your main residence. It appears to be so now - so you should be ok .

Not if it's your main residence. It appears to be so now - so you should be ok

^This advice is totally incorrect

Read this guide on how to calculation your CGT. Basically you will have an exemption for the 15 months you've lived there, plus an additional 18 months bonus exemption.

www.directlineforbusiness.co.uk/landlord-insurance/knowledge-centre/finance-and-legal/how-to-prove-and-calculate-private-residence-relief

That last post is also incorrect.
The 18 months exemption is the LAST 18 months (and is reducing to 9 months from April 2020) of ownership before sale.
Given you are entitled to Principal Private Residence relief for most of this period anyway as you have been living there (and this period increasing as time goes on and you continue to live there) the 18 month exemption is broadly irrelevant to you.

You will need to calculate the gain over the entire period of ownership and pro-rata it to deduct the period you get PPR relief for.
You will then further be entitled to Lettings Relief of up to £40k, but I'm not going in to the calculations here.
Finally you have a personal annual CGT allowance which you can use.

Basically you need to find out the relevant figures and dates andwork the calculations.

www.gov.uk/tax-sell-home

Bloody hell - my accountant has given me bad info then - sorry !

agree entirely with chasingsquirrels

Also do those calculations quickly and decide what you are going to do as Lettings relief changes kick in in April 2020 also when it may no longer be deductible. (40k is a lot of relief and could mean you don’t pay any cgt or much less).

Don't forget you can deduct your legal costs and stamp duty from when you bought the property too. Often the stamp duty alone will swallow any gain.