The appellant’s claims for property expenses in respect of periods when she was still living at the property were mistakenly made but were not careless errors and her appeals against HMRC’s discovery assessments were therefore allowed.
On 12 July 2013, the appellant bought a property to live in. She lived in the property between 12 July 2013 and 16 June 2014. The appellant moved out of the property on or before 16 June 2014. It was rented out between 16 June 2014 and 23 May 2015.
The appellant claimed expenses of £19,772 incurred in preparing the property to rent against rental income in her tax returns for 2013/14 and 2014/15. The property was sold on 16 June 2015. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) disallowed the expenses claims by making discovery assessments (under TMA 1970, s 29(4)) for those tax years. The appellant appealed.
HMRC submitted that they