Ten years ago I bought a property for my aging parents. On the death of my father two years ago (my mother predeceased him), I decided to rent the property to paying tenants. I had up to that time paid the mortgage and continue to do so, with my parents paying all utility bills. Prior to renting the property, I spent around £20,000 to bring it up to date.
I now feel that the property is more of a liability and want to sell it but am unsure of what the situation is with regard to capital gains liability.
Given that I bought the property in the first place for my parents with no expectation of help with the mortgage, what can I expect to have to pay, if anything, in capital gains tax? Any advice would be much appreciated.
As you have bought two houses then I would expect capital gains tax to apply when you sell one, but there are some tax experts on here and hopefully someone will see this and give a more informed answer
Since you've never lived in it, it has never been your principal private residence, so any capital gain has a CGT liability, less capital improvements you have made. Most of the £20k can probably be counted as capital improvements but it boils down to specifics. Any net gain will have your annual CGT allowance deductible, just over £10k, then you pay CGT on the residue.
Presumably you've been declaring any net income from rent as income for income tax, though perhaps there isn't any.