Owning your own home

rent it me; i'll rip the floorboards up and bypass the leccy meter, but willing to split the £40k p.a. weed profits, yeah?!?

what is the most bullet-proof method of doing this (renting out your propert when overseas), transfer the propert to a company created for that purpose, get said company to pay the mortgage/recieve rent etc? Or is that a ridiculous suggestion?

My assumption would be that you could set rents just below outgoings in order to neutralise any capital gains/income issues related to tax?

if you transfer to a ltd co, then the ltd co will have to fund a commercial mortgage, plus rates increase notification to local council, plus disposal of the asset will attract corporation tax. plus, evicting squatters from commercial premises is a lot harder than from private residential.

if would be more advantageous to retain the property but notify mortgage co of rental status. then rent out fully managed through a good mgmt. co with a strong contract and large deposit. look into insurances for bad debts/ccjs against any naughty tenants. from 6th april 2016 rent a room allowance goes up to £7,500 pa, this may or may not be offsettable against income tax if you've let the whole flat out though. you retain the property as sole uk residence, so upon disposal no cgt to pay

i went away in 1998 and took a very large deposit, didn't tell hector, upon return had to evict the fuckers, but the flat had doubled in value so redecorating for sale wasn't that much of an issue - ymmv

@hefty will be along presently to refute all of the above!

Nah, @hefty agrees.

Do it legit. Get an NRL number, let it through an agent who will give you yearly accounts and then pay tax properly in your new country.

As @rive_gauche sez, there's no CGT if you move back into the property when you return, though there might be if so sell it whilst abroad, depending on how the country you're resident in taxes such things.

Your best bet is to get a job in Andorra.

You will pay CGT on a representative portion of the gain, no? So if you only lived in it for five years out of ten, you'd pay CGT on half? You can't just exempt yourself from it by moving into it at the end before you sell.

gov website that will give an indication of whether cgt may be liable > https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-selling-home

Will check with a couple of architects (a friend and the one that did the drawings for the planning permission) and see what they think. Thanks for your help @Sumo!

nae bother

if you transfer to a ltd co, then the ltd co will have to fund a commercial mortgage, plus rates increase notification to local council, plus disposal of the asset will attract corporation tax. plus, evicting squatters from commercial premises is a lot harder than from private residential.

I would've thought SDLT would be an issue too, potentially both on the tx to the LtdCo and on the tx from the LtdCo back to you.

Yes forgot about stamp duty :(

..and, if you can navigate your way through that lot and then want to take a dividend from the ltd co, well from 6th April hector will want 7.5, 32.5, or 38.1% of that - thanks george..

What if I take in a lodger, and am just not home much (but do have a room)?

That would be the ideal situation tax wise

You are overestimating my form filling abilities. I'm useless.
At the time I was doing it I was actually unemployed and of no fixed address plus a few other look-the-other-way set ups. But it wasn't permanent. If I knew it was a long term set up I would of sorted it properly, I'm actually quite keen on paying taxes. I guess the message I wanted to get across is not to let paperwork hold you back on things...

If you want some real world examples drop me a PM. I prob shouldn't put them in this thread but I know plenty of folk who have houses and have moved abroad/taken in lodgers etc.

Moving day. The council won't release the funds for this place until they've been at 12 o clock to inspect the house and are happy it is vacant. Ugh.

Removal people are running 25 minutes late. Bastards.

mrs_com rang to say there was water coming through the bathroom light fittings for a few minutes and then stopped. No quite diagnosed the issue yet as she is still to knock on the uostairs neighbours' door. I reckon they've overfilled the bath.

So far I only have that account and the attached photo to go on.

Is this kind of thing a definite rip out and redo or is it likely to dry out OK? Concerned about the plaster and the electrics.

Those are the only two spot lights.

1 Attachment

Thanks Chris. Haven't even had the interview for the thing that may take me abroad yet. But if I do get it, then I suspect that things will have to happen very quickly.

Depends on the construction of the ceiling but best case scenario is: as long as it was a one off and all is allowed to dry out properly (perhaps remove downlights so air can flow into the cavity) you should get away with perhaps just a light sand and then repaint/touchup of the ceiling.

This is the first since we bought the place in September and it was very brief, by all accounts. At the very least I plan to pop the lights out. I've told her to stick the dehumidifier in there and turn the heating on.

Had something similar happen but the other way round. I regrouted my bath and missed a wee bit. It was enough for water from the shower to run through to downstairs. Have patched up grout and no issues so far... touch wood... could be a similar situation? Hold on, you don't live in The Driftway do ya?

Absolutely get the neighbours down to see it, and then insist that it gets investigated. Also hope they aren't renting as landlords can be a pain in the arse.

Ha, no. For it to be so sudden and brief I reckon it's a spill/overflow. They've not been doing any DIY or refits.

That's why I got mrs_com to email me a photo so there would be a time/date record.

Phew.
I had the same and I missed about 5cm of grout... that was enough for it to be as wet as this...

Water will pool on top of the board and emerge front the lamp holes, could be coming from anywhere above in the cavity.

I've done it to my downstairs neihmghbours due to a dripping cistern overflow- literally a drop every 30 seconds or so but of course it mounts up and then finds a route through.

So whatever it was needs to be found and fixed - but once that's done it should be fine once it's dried out.