Lay My Hat

Hello,

I am setting up a small, one bed holiday cottage for full time, commercial use. Please can someone tell me if you can reclaim the VAT paid on goods and services purchased for use in your holiday let business? For example, Plus Net seem happy to provide me with either ordinary or business broadband, informing me the only real difference is how I want to be invoiced i.e whether I want be able to claim the VAT back.

Advice much appreciated!

Many thanks,

May

You can only claim back VAT if you are VAT registered.

You need to register if your turnover is £85K. You can register voluntarily but then you'd need to add VAT to your prices and complete regular VAT returns

If this is your only business the downsides completely outweigh the tiny VAT savings you'd make. Having to charge VAT on your prices will make you much more expensive for guests than those of us who take great care not to have to VAT register.

If you have other business interests it can get complicated so in that case you should take an accountants advice.

Many thanks for your reply Cymraes, this is incredibly helpful, and very much appreciated.

We reclaimed VAT back on materials used when we renovated our cottage.
Though the criteria by HMRC for reclaiming VAT was that the property had to have been unoccupied for 10 years or more.
Also the cottage was for our own use and not for a holiday let.

Cymraes wrote:You can only claim back VAT if you are VAT registered.

You need to register if your turnover is £85K. You can register voluntarily but then you'd need to add VAT to your prices and complete regular VAT returns

If this is your only business the downsides completely outweigh the tiny VAT savings you'd make. Having to charge VAT on your prices will make you much more expensive for guests than those of us who take great care not to have to VAT register.

If you have other business interests it can get complicated so in that case you should take an accountants advice.

All excellent advice - we have the T Shirt!

Thanks guys!