Partial Exemption and VAT on Domestic Property

Jenny Chamberlain

Please can somebody give me some guidance I have been reading through all of the VAT books (yes really boring) but nothing beats real life experience.

I work for a property company that owns and rent out its own commercial property, we do have some residential but at the moment it is very minimal. We have to perform a partial exemption calculation each year as we are a group with three subsidiaries and we have both taxable and exempt supplies.

I have been asked if we can take advantage of the low property prices and purchase either some land to build residential property on, a renovation of current property of an existing letting property and rent them out for the time being with a view to possible selling them later when property prices increase again.

I need to get to grips with the VAT and partial exemption implications of doing this and I am a little confused. I am working with somebody who does know the answers (and is trying to make me look incompetent as I have qualifications but only 6 mnths experience in this industry and they have over 20yrs experience) therefore decisions will not be made solely on what I say and I do have access to external accountants for expert advice later down the line. At the moment I just need to be able to hold my own with any discussions we have.

Please if anybody can help or guide me to any literature I would be grateful.

T.C.

I deal with partial exemption with regard to rental properties and new builds. If you have a specific question, please feel free to PM me.