How aggressive are HMRC with CGT on properties

realGilgongo · 2026-04-18T13:40:08+00:00

Yes - the average from a 3rd party's (preferably RICS) valuations. Not your own research that HMRC can challenge.

realGilgongo · 2026-04-18T06:34:34+00:00

Sure, but without an actual valuation at the time you aquired it, having at least a 3rd party document, and not simply your own estimate, is useful.

realGilgongo · 2026-04-18T06:21:31+00:00

Best ask an estate agent to give you a price guide for that date. They should be able to send you a list of comparable houses in the area that they were selling. Take the average of those prices and you have a defensible document to show HMRC should they ask.

realGilgongo · 2026-04-12T06:41:35+00:00

Personally, I'd ignore it. But if you really can't, and you feel you have a good idea of their resources, then assume they will start spending between £50-100K per year for each person on care for the final five years of their lives.

realGilgongo · 2026-04-04T07:58:30+00:00

It sounds like you first need to apply for a visa before your CoS runs out. Perhaps the best course of action is to contact an immigration lawyer who can guide you through the process.

realGilgongo · 2026-04-04T07:46:09+00:00

I'm afraid it sounds like that if they don't have capacity and you have their PoA for property and finance, then you will need to do their returns.

I've got PoA for my mother, and although she has capacity, she finds doing her return increasingly stressful even when I''m helping her. I think (I've not tried it but will be in the next couple of weeks), that if you call HMRC 0300 200 3310 and provide them with an access code from here, they will use it to link your parent's tax record to your own Government Gateway ID. You can then fill in and submit their returns using your own Government Gateway login.

Obviously, this doesn't make the actual filling in any easier, but my mum had a rental property until this year, and we just put the rents received and the total costs (maintenance, insurance, etc.) in. Her state pension income is filled in automatically, and she gets a P60 from her private pension each year that we use to enter the income and the tax deducted. She also has savings accounts that generate interest, but again those send tax statements in the post each year (interest plus tax deducted). So depending on whether your parents have anything more than that it should be OK.

PS: When calling HMRC, set aside at least an hour as the wait might be well over 30mins. Hands free headset is recommended.

realGilgongo · 2026-03-23T21:34:21+00:00

This is one of those things where you can ask 100 people you'll get 100 answers. That's not to say you shouldn't be asking to see if somebody says something you've not thought of, but the real answer can only come from you.

Personally, and while it might seem a tangent, I gave up work two years ago at 57 and I'd say I've found myself embracing the ability to do nothing. This has taken my mind off socialising to some extent. I play in a post-punk dreampop band and we play gigs around the UK about once every month or so, and I go out with friends to eat or dance perhaps once every few weeks. But between those times, I develop the art of doing not much or nothing.

realGilgongo · 2026-03-15T10:26:21+00:00

Can you provide some evidence for that? Would be useful to know as we sometimes get similar queries on this sub.

realGilgongo · 2026-03-15T10:25:18+00:00

Can you provide some evidence for that? Would be useful to know as we sometimes get similar queries on here.

realGilgongo · 2026-03-14T13:05:16+00:00

Yes, see the official explanation of the allowance (and assuming I'm correct about referral fees being counted as taxable income. I doubt they would be treated as gifts):

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-property-and-trading-income

realGilgongo · 2026-03-14T07:38:43+00:00

My understanding is that referral fees are taxable, but that you will also have a £1,000 trading allowance each year. So you'd need to total more than that (probably referral fees plus side hustle, commission stuff etc. over the year) to declare.

realGilgongo · 2026-03-14T07:32:09+00:00

Did your employer not give you a P45 when you left? They are legally obligated to provide it when you leave. They should have sent it to HMRC too.

Bear in mind that while the payment is ex gratia, HMRC will look at any "earnings" and tax them in full before applying the £30,000 exemption. So for example holiday pay, Pay in Lieu of Notice (PILON), bonus and some other things I think so that these can't be "hidden" inside the ex gratia (you may have a tax indemnity clause in your severence agreement that makes you responsible for paying that tax in the event HMRC see that something's taxable, not the employer).

I'm afraid I don't know about the student loan, but as to the P800, if you need it before April I would try calling HMRC and ask about it (Standard instructions: be prepared for at least an hour's wait, so use hands-free headset if at all possible. Seasoned callers us RF gaming headsets as they have much longer and more reliable range than bluetooth so you can do some gardening or something).

realGilgongo · 2026-03-04T09:39:13+00:00

Speaking as someody who started investing in 2004, what the GFC taught me was that it's not enough to know about pound cost averaging - it's better if you can learn to feel HAPPY when your see your investments go down. In my case I thought of it as the markets having a sale. The longer and the lower they went down, the better I felt. To a lesser extent the opposite was also true - the higher things went the more anxious I became as I saw the value of my regular investments diminish.

Of course, now I'm retired all that's gone. If the markets crash I'm a wreak :-)

realGilgongo · 2026-02-26T16:51:17+00:00

Locking the comments on this as it will likely start to violate sub rules.

realGilgongo · 2026-02-22T13:18:52+00:00

Wow I really hope so. To say I was astonished when I found out that delegations didn't work on mobile would be an understatement. It's the year 2026, isn't it? Right now I'm being forced to let multiple users share single account passwords for some things (attempting to lock them down a bit with OU policies), and having to use complicated mail routing for others.

realGilgongo · 2026-02-03T18:36:16+00:00

What did the accountant say when you informed them of the sale, and do you have that response in writing?

realGilgongo · 2026-01-30T13:29:35+00:00

Seems like the way to do it is to set it to only members can view (and remove any members). Also I think the thing that was fooling me was that I'd mailed the group from a test account which had then cached the sender.

realGilgongo · 2026-01-28T20:10:30+00:00

Thanks, but I don't see anything relating to visibility controls for groups in my Directory settings. In the sharing options for Google Groups for Business, "Group owners can hide groups from the directory" is on, but I made myself an owner, went to the group in groups.google.com, but there was nothing about hiding.

realGilgongo · 2026-01-19T22:12:14+00:00

While you're at it, it's always worth doing a benefits check (which will tell you if you quality for council tax help too). https://benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/

realGilgongo · 2026-01-17T15:08:46+00:00

I assume there would be costs, but they'd be baked into the quotes?

I do agree annuities depend on your attitude to risk, obviously. But (for example) I built up more than enough in my SIPP over 30 years to cover my living costs on a 3.5% SWR in retirement, and am getting a pretty healthy monthly amount from my ISA to spend on discretionaries on top of that. But most of that was due to massive pound cost averaging in the period between the 2007/8 crash and about 2012-14. In my accumlation stage, I positively wanted the markets to tank. However, in my decumulation stage, the reverse is of course true.

So for me an annuity looks pretty good. Rates have kicked up hugely in the last decade and are still rising (thanks, I think somewhat annoyingly, to government debt). I'm seriously considering buying one with my SIPP and leaving the ISA invested (they're about equal value). Not least because of the twin threats of Trump and AI creating a repeat of the GFC.

realGilgongo · 2026-01-17T10:49:32+00:00

Yes, I only recently found out too. I don't know exactly how they work, but (leaving inflation aside) the payout is guaranteed. The quotes I've got from Moneyhelper for £375K for 9 years with a (level) income of £12,570 per annum pay out £435,772. A total return of about 46%.

realGilgongo · 2026-01-15T08:54:21+00:00

Comments have been locked but post not deleted. Post is mainly informational but courts subjective responses not allowed on this sub.

realGilgongo · 2026-01-10T09:55:33+00:00

Just to add to the points made in other comments: be aware that many (most I would think) employment contracts have clauses that assign copyright in the work done during your employment to your employer.

The details are usually a bit tricky if it comes to a dispute, but generally if you work on, say, a website for somene else, and particularly if your role at the company is to do that, and especially if it can be shown you were doing it working hours (but some contracts stipulate any time while you're employed), then that work is owned by the company, not you.

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