I hold the lease of a property comprising of a shop on the ground floor and offices above. The shop is vacant and only one of the offices is let. I’ve received a good offer from a property developer to purchase the lease of the whole building. If I invest in another commercial let property can I rollover the gain and avoid paying tax on the sale of the lease?
It is possible to rollover gains made on land and buildings used by trading businesses or which are let to trading businesses that are connected to the building owner. However, letting of property is not regarded as a ‘trade’, so you can’t rollover the gain you make on selling the lease of this building. Even if your own trading company occupied a part of the building, rollover relief would only be available on the proportion of the building it occupied.
