Rent a room

[Brightonian]

I took on a client recently who, with her husband, has two residences. I do not act for H, who deals with his own self-assessment. They have been married for years and owned both properties for years before marriage and are now out of date for a PPR election. Traditionally, she has always shown the Oxford property (which H owns) as the address on her tax return, as she works there, although she spends part of the week in the London property and also a few days in Coventry. Wife owns the London property, where H spends half the week. I consider that, on the facts, London is likely to be their main residence, as, taken together, they spend more nights there each year.

There is a lodger in the London property. Previously, she showed this income less a proportion of expenses as a normal rental on her tax return. I feel that she can show it as rent a room income. However, she now tells me that there is also a lodger at the Oxford property and that H claims rent a room exemption on this income.

I know that for PPR purposes, a married couple can have only one main residence. Is this the same for rent a room? - I cannot find evidence of this anywhere. I vaguely remember being told that you can have a different PPR for rent a room than for CGT, although that is not really to the point here.

I should be grateful for help on this matter.

[AdamS93]

s.309 ITTOIA refers to ‘only or main residence’.

You can’t have a different main residence for the purposes of income tax and CGT - how would you even be able to justify this without contradicting yourself anyway?

[Brightonian]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I thought you could have a different main residence for CGT and income tax but, thinking about it, this would only be if you had made an election in favour of one but spent more time at the other. You can't have two different factual main residences.