LadyGoneGone

See it's things like this we need to do more research on, as we really don't know much about the legalities - and we need to! Is it advisable to become Spanish residents before selling our main UK residence? We are hoping to see an advisor in Lanzarote when we go in November, but there's no such thing as too much info!
Thanks for your help.

chopera

No - the other way round - sell your UK home and make sure you don't become a Spanish tax resident until the following year (usually this boils down to "don't spend more than 6 months in Spain in the same year as you sell your house"). Spain charges CGT on the sale of your primary residence if you don't buy another one within something like 2 years. There may be an exemption if you are over 65. I'm not an expert on this but it has been discussed many times - have a search through the forum and look out for posts by Cap'nBilly and Fred James for example.

LadyGoneGone

Oh right I see!
It's all in the timing then.If there is an exemption for over 65's it won't apply as my husband is 53 and I'm 39.
Nothing's ever straightforward is it?

LadyGoneGone

Have any of you on here kept your properties in the UK? Keeping the main one (i.e. the one we rent out) would be an option I suppose, but we're not mortgage free and the rent doesn't cover the mortgage. The house we're in now is an interest only mortgage. The general consensus of opinion is to advise against us selling our house, which would mean an agent keeping an eye on it for us. Although it would speed things up a bit and I got a bit of a scary letter from work today and it looks like there are going to be some jobs scrapped next year.