CGT on second home

[morestout]

My recently deceased sister in law is hoping to sell her home and buy something smaller but may well be forced into the buying before completing her sale. What are the CGT implications of her having two properties and would she have a reasonable timeframe to allow her to sell the second before CGT kicks in.

[Loup321]

The Capital Gain would be on her current property when she sells it. Most of the period the time that she owned it, it was her Primary Place of Residence, which is an exemption. https://www.gov.uk/tax-sell-home She also would have an exemption for (I think) the last 9 months. This period has changed a few times in recent years, so I'm not sure what it is at the moment. So if she owned the property for 100 months (about 8 years) and then moved out 10 months before she finally sold, 99 months would be exempt, and only 1% of the gain would be chargeable. She also has a tax free allowance for Capital Gains, of £12,300 (for 2022/3) https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax/allowances

More important is the increased Stamp Duty on second homes. https://www.gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax/residential-property-rates It's 3% on top of whatever bracket she would be buying. If she already owns a property, this surcharge is definitely due. It's reclaimable if you sell your main home within 3 years.

I hope that's useful, and gets you started looking at the correct gov.uk webpages. If you search in Google, I would recommend you clicked on their links rather than other links. They're pretty clear, and in my opinion the definitive advice.

[Dod101]

My recently deceased sister in law is hoping to sell her home and buy something smaller but may well be forced into the buying before completing her sale. What are the CGT implications of her having two properties and would she have a reasonable timeframe to allow her to sell the second before CGT kicks in.

So there is life after death after all?

Dod

[eisman]

So there is life after death after all?

No, but as Benjamin Franklin pointed out, in this world the other certainty is 'taxes'.

The OP probably meant 'recently bereaved'.