Hi,
I am seeking to clarify the 6-year rule and treating a former residence as a main residence for CGT purposes when we have multiple properties.
We have an accountant, and the advice has been that to be eligible to claim the CGT exemption under the 6-year rule, we must not establish a new residence during the period (i.e. cannot purchase another property - renting is fine). My understanding based on previous threads here, and the 'Treating former home as main residence' page is that this advice is not correct, we can purchase additional properties that we live in, however only nominate 1 property at a time as our main residence.
It would be great if anyone could please clarify my understanding to assist my conversation with my accountant.
Further details are below.
- My wife and I purchased a townhouse in City A in 2014 (Property A) we live in this property as our PPOR.
- In 2016 my wife was sent to City B for her training, we decided to purchase another property (Property B) and both moved to this house and rented out Property A.
- In 2020 once her training was finished, we decided to move back to City A, but instead of moving back to Property A, we purchased our current PPOR (Property C).
- In 2023 we decided to sell Property A.
We do not intend on selling Property B for a very long time, and potentially never intend to sell Property C.
We would like to claim the CGT exemption for the period of 2016 to 2020 on Property A. We understand that this means we cannot claim this period on any other property (i.e. there will be no exemption at all on Property B).
Would it be possible to please let me know if my understanding of the 6-year rule is correct, and if we can claim a portion of it on Property A? Noting that we purchased two other properties in this period and we lived in all 3.
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