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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

UK arrival date re house purchase

ManxMan
Posts:1
Joined:Mon Sep 13, 2021 5:07 pm
UK arrival date re house purchase

Postby ManxMan » Mon Sep 13, 2021 5:45 pm

Will appreciate any knowledgeable comments on these questions.

Lived outside the UK since 1992 so not resident for almost 30 years. One accommodation tie in 2021 under SRT. Not working and no intention of working. No other ties.

At 13/9/2021 I have spent 66 days in England and my wife has spent 55 days this tax year. We are buying a property to live in in the UK. We exchange contracts on 23/9/2021 and close on 30/9/2021. We can move in by 15/10/2021 and give up our present foreign home by 31/10/2021. This would make us fit the facts of Case 4 in the SRT examples but what is our arrival day for split year purposes? Is it the 23/9/2021 date of exchanging contracts, the 30/9/2021 date of closing or is it the date we can arrive of 15/10/2021?

If my wife buys the property in her name in September and I arrive on 1/11/2021, is my arrival date determined by her date or it is my own personal arrival date of 1/11/2021?

We note that my 66 days exceeds the 60 days on the prorata table in the SRT guidelines for 1-30 Sept but I also only have one tie so our read of the rules says this is OK in terms of starting our split year on either of the potential trigger dates of 23/9, 30/9 or 15/10. Section 4 Table B actually says that exceeding 60 days requires at least two ties in order to be deemed resident in the period before buying the property. With only one tie, I should be non-resident in the first part of the split year. Is this correct?

We can also keep our foreign home until 6/4/2022 and continue to live in it until then, making us fit Case 8. We have stayed in this foreign home more than 30 days this tax year. The SRT rules say that provided we do not visit the new UK property more than 30 days then we are not resident but is this permitted 30 days prorated down because we only acquired the property in September 2021 to, say, 15 days? Also the HMRC site is very specific that a simple trip to the new property to collect mail counts as one of the 30 days. Tolleys on the other hand says that the owner can go and collect mail, cut the grass etc and it does not count so long as the owner does not stay overnight. Is Tolleys wrong on this? Seems to us that it is wrong.

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