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Make a house a home

This is not only a particularly annoying advertising slogan: it is also a piece of good advice for anyone seeking relief under TCGA 1992 s222 (CGT "main residence" relief). And it was precisely what one Jason Terrence Moore failed to persuade the First Tier Tribunal he had done in a recent case before them [2010] UKFTT 445 (TC).

The facts were fairly simple: Mr Moore lived with his girlfriend (who later became his wife) until December 1999. They bought a house together in December 1999 and he (but not she) allegedly lived there for a couple of months while renovating it and before letting it. There was, unfortunately for Mr Moore, no documentary evidence of his residence: no insurance or utility bills, for example and no registration for Council Tax or water rates. And the only furniture at the property was a bed and a cooker.

To secure the relief, Mr Moore needed to discharge the onus of proof to show that the property had been his only or main residence: the Tribunal held that he had not demonstrated that it was his residence at all, let alone his only or main one, accepting instead HMRC's contention that "the Appellant's occupation of the Bishop's Rise Property did not have the quality that turned mere occupation of it into its being his residence".

The case does not create any precedent: it is long established that the relief requires not merely ownership and occupation but something more: that the property must be the claimant's home. Exactly what that means is, like so many tax concepts, easier to recognise than to define: but the Court of Appeal's attempt in Goodwin v Curtis 70 TC 478 is a good start: "There must be some degree of permanence, some degree of continuity, some expectation of continuity".

Not a precedent, then; but a warning: first, that the onus of showing that relief is available is on the claimant: second that a claim without any documentary evidence is always going to be vulnerable; third, that "residence" requires much more than moving in for a couple of months with barely any furniture and moving out again as soon as the renovations are complete. To get the relief, take some trouble: in fact – "Make a House a Home".