Lay My Hat

Hi everyone, I hope I'm posting in the right place. I'm looking for clarity on the period of grace and hoping to find some from your collective wealth of experience.

We opened our cottage last July and have rented the place out but it's not had 105 days yet. We've let out to family but I understand those don't count if you give a discount. Obviously coronavirus has scuppered our plan to catch up over the Easter and May holidays.

From the research I've done it seems that the period of grace requires you to have one full year first, which seems unfair. Surely you struggle most with bookings your first year. There's a section on HMRCs website that says about being closed for part of the year but is that after the 105 days? Plus being closed so long I'm not sure if we've been open the full 210 days, I'll have to check!

I've asked a friend who's an accountant but unfortunately although she can check our books she doesn't know what to do about coronavirus!

Thanks

Yes, you can only make a period of grace election if you have already met the criteria.

We could not meet the requirements in our first year, as I am sure a lot of holiday lets can't, because you are just beginning and you have not had many guests. There won't be any repeat business, in our first year we only had a few weeks booked.

I treated the income as an ordinary rental property income, until it met the criteria.

Thank you. Fortunately once lockdown lifted we were able to get the last few bookings we needed 🙂

Don't forget the measure is for tax years not calendar years so you have until the end of march to make your number for this year.