Member

Here are five examples of the things Samuel Leeds is saying. First, he claims that people can buy a rundown property, renovate it, sell it and pay no capital gains tax because they can just claim it was their main residence. He claims that he has done it himself multiple times. That advice is simply wrong. Section 224(3) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 strips the main residency exemption from any property acquired with the purpose of making a gain. The case law is equally clear: if someone never intended to make it their settled home, it was never their residence at all. This law kills that wheeze twice over. Our constituents who follow that advice face not just the capital gains tax, but potentially income tax at an even higher rate if the taxman decides—frankly, rightly—that they were doing a property development trade.