CGT on Two Properties

[JWhite]

We have an apartment in Spain and our main residence in the UK where we live. We want to eventually sell our house in the UK to buy a larger property in Spain, obviously also selling our apartment in Spain after we move over. Will we have to pay two capital gains taxes on both properties? I am sure I read that you don't pay capital gains tax on your main residence. Does that mean we will not have to pay CGT if we decide to sell our UK home first but then pay tax when we eventually get another property and sell our apartment in Spain. We think it might take us some time to sell our apartment and did think about moving over there first to another property.

I am sure someone else must have been in the same boat as us. What happened?

[simmy]

You don't pay CGT on your only property in the UK. If by some miracle you make a gain on your Spanish property if you use the money to buy another property you can claim the 5% retention payment back. That is what some friends of mine did last year and as far as I know it's still the same. Although this is Spain and the law here can change at anytime!!

[JWhite]

Gret news Simmy, and there was me anticipating a huge CGT bill when we come to sell our house or our apartment.

As you say "if by some miracle you make some profit on your apartment", you are dead right. It is not even worth what we paid for it 3 years ago so I do not see us making any profit on that.

Thanks for the info.