UK Landlord Forum / Life

Good morning all.

Currently looking to submit our first rental self assessment.

Have tried looking online but feel like I'm getting conflicting information.

We are looking at the expenses section for our self assessment.

A bit of background first..
My wife and I bought the house from my parents around 13 years ago after they unfortunately took out an equity release policy.
So with this in mind we bought the house from them at a reduced cost and paid off the equity release protecting the property from being taken later down the line.
The property is actually 2 under the same address.
Being originally my grandmother's house before being passed onto my mum when they took out the equity release to settle debts that my parents had.
On us buying the house, my grandmother continued to live in the main house while my parents live in a self contained annex on the same plot.
Fast forward to 2021 when my grandmother sadly passed away meaning that we now had the main residence empty and the plan was to rent this out.
We replaced the bathroom and kitchen (not improving, just replacing as they were old and worn out) and also decorated throughout and recarpeted.
This took the best part of a year to complete and we finally let the property out in August 2022.
So now our first self assessment is due.
Pre rental repairs seem to be allowed but we're not sure how that applies to us being as this is our first tenant and we didn't recently buy the house for rental.
The house was livable before the work and could have been rented out before the repairs etc were undertaken but we wanted to bring it up to date a bit (orange bathroom etc) and make the house appealing to potential tenants going forward.

Are we able to claim for these repairs/replacements ??

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I look forward to your replies.

Many thanks
 

As long as you or your family weren't living in the property while the work was being done, it sounds like a business expense to me. Anything preparing for the business use of a property to be used for residential rental can be claimed (up to six years in advance).

They're treated as though they were incurred on the first day of the first tenancy (which is when your business starts for tax purposes).

Your tax return and payment is due in a few days, this isn't really the ideal time to be asking this!

Quote from: jpkeates on January 13, 2024, 11:02:23 AMAs long as you or your family weren't living in the property while the work was being done, it sounds like a business expense to me. Anything preparing for the business use of a property to be used for residential rental can be claimed (up to six years in advance).

They're treated as though they were incurred on the first day of the first tenancy (which is when your business starts for tax purposes).

Your tax return and payment is due in a few days, this isn't really the ideal time to be asking this!

Thank you for your reply
Yes that's as I read it.
Property was empty from the time my Gran passed away up until the tenant moving in.

Everything is in place for the self assessment which will be going in this weekend online.

I know it's close but still have until the end of the month.

With the cost of the work done, we will probably be negative for this one.

Does that carry forward ??

Rent was around 6.5k for the 8 months it was occupied for 22-23.
Repairs were around 7k all told plus around £1200 for the management fees and other items we can also claim for.

Thanks again for clarifying

Yes, you can carry forward losses on the self assessment, which will reduce the tax owed next year.

Quote from: jpkeates on January 13, 2024, 02:16:19 PMYes, you can carry forward losses on the self assessment, which will reduce the tax owed next year.

Fantastic
Thank you very much for your help, it's much appreciated 👍🏻