# Selling house in UK question.



## Shipresa (Dec 9, 2008)

Hi!

Are there tax implications for such scenarios? I am American, Husband is UK Citizen.

1. Husband arrives on his visa and becomes Permanent Resident. Then we sell house in UK. He will be arriving in order to work as PR. Do we pay capital gains in USA? (UK house is our primary residence, and we will be buying a primary residence in USA, with no further property assets in UK.)

OR

2. We sell house FIRST, then husband comes to USA as PR.

Which tax situation should we look at?

Additionally - in USA, I understood if you sell your house and buy a new one in the same tax year, you don't have to pay capital gains. Any tie-in to that if the property is abroad?

Has anyone here done this same process? We are moving from UK to USA for his work and unsure what flow we should consider as we have the flexibilty, up to and including selling the UK house after we buy the USA house.

Thank you in advance for any advice.


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## KhwaamLap (Feb 29, 2008)

Shipresa said:


> Hi!
> 
> Are there tax implications for such scenarios? I am American, Husband is UK Citizen.
> 
> ...


Before I moved to Thaland I sold my UK house and deposited funds in a UK bank account. No sellers tax on properties in the UK. I can then bring money into Thailand as I wish. There is no import duty on money (other than exchange rates and bank charges).

As he is a UK citizen, he can do the same - and then there should be no tax liabilities in the States.


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## Bevdeforges (Nov 16, 2007)

If you go with scenario #1, be advised that you will have to declare your worldwide income on your US tax returns, which will include the capital gains from the house sale. Now, under the US tax rules, you can exclude up to $250,000 of the gain ($500,000 for a married couple) if you've owned the house you sold for at least 5 years and lived in it as your primary residence for at least 2 of those years. AFAIK, there's no restriction that the home you're selling has to be in the US. (I haven't checked into that - but under the old rules, where you used to have to buy another home in order to defer the gain, you could buy a new primary residence overseas and it counted.)

But scenario #2 is certainly a simpler way to go. You settle whatever tax liability the UK wants to impose on you and then you start up with the US IRS free and clear.
Cheers,
Bev


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