Selling a UK Property

Selling a UK Property

I was asked recently about a little  known UK property tax break which I revealed some time ago and thought I would repeat it again here:  If you are a NON UK resident and the owner of a UK property and you  want to sell it, maybe you inherited it and don't want to use it, you  have rented property for years but it is getting too costly, you had a  home there but you have moved to Italy and it is no longer used or  any number of other reasons, then you are now subject to Capital  Gains tax on the sale as a NON UK resident.  HOWEVER... The value of the property is taken at 6th April 2015 when the law came into place.  So, if you have a property that has appreciated in value considerably in  the UK and want to sell it, you may have little to nothing to pay in  Capital Gains tax to pay in the UK depending on the growth in value form April 6th 2015 until the date of sale.   In addition, remember that if you have held the property for more  than 5 tax years then Italy would no longer consider it a speculative investment and no Capital Gains tax would apply in Italy either.   A nice tax break should you care to take advantage of it.  ________________________________________________________ Inflation watch  If you had the chance to read my last blog in May 2017 about inflation, you would have realised that the chances of a prolonged period of inflation are highly likely in the near future.  The economic forces are aligning to make this happen.  To prove a point, I received a letter on my return from holiday this year. The letter was from an HSBC Insurance Policy and was informing me the rate at which my insurance premium would rise this year. (See picture above).  They are using the UK Retail Price Index at a rate of 3.496%!   In reality the Retail Price Index is normally behind the true rate of inflation, so we can expect that it is markedly higher than this in the UK already. As always if you would like to discuss how any of this may affect you then you can contact me on gareth.horsfall@spectrum-ifa.com or on cell: 333 649 2356