@Shunt Very interested to read that, as I still have a property in the UK and momentarily thinking about the future. Am I right in understanding that when you sold your UK property you were resident in France and only paid capital gains tax in France and not the UK? If so, is that the norm or were your circumstances unusual for some reason? Fascinated to hear more 
What I was getting at was if you buy a house in the UK as a second home and then were to subsequently live in it (as a main residence) the UK would generally tax you. The taxable portion would be the proportion of any gain that related to the period of ānon occupationā as main residence. There are some reliefs available. I was trying to make the comparison with Franceās more generous treatment of an identical situation.
There are unfortunately several scenarios where clients of mine and other colleagues, found they had to pay UK CGT on selling their main residence, (but mainly in the above initial 2nd home scenario) which evidently came as a nasty shockā¦
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That is a nasty future shock! We still have a UK property that is rented, and have been pottering along with the happy idea that one day we will return to the UK for a year (which we can do without loosing French residency rights) swap our fiscal and main residence. Then at the end of the year sell it and scuttle back to France.
So if we canāt that changes things!
But surely isnāt this what many Tory politicians do, and flip their main residence to get the best tax advantages when they sell their Westminster homes ? (which tax payers have contributed to as well)
The norm is that the UK reserves full taxing rights for the sale of a UK property at a Ā£ gain, for French residents under the tax treaty (though there should not be double tax) .Obviously there may be UK reliefs available for periods occupied as main residence etc. There are also nasty, tight filing deadlines now for reporting sale of UK properties by non residents, on top of the annual tax return obligations.
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I would salute your courage - and stamina - if you were to do that!!
On a related theme, I would occasionally come across clients (invariably men) who toyed with the idea of going through the most radical upheavals in their personal lives simply to reduce tax bills (eg moving to tiny tax havens in the middle of the ocean, living on a cruise ship for 3 years, or even moving toā¦ Belgium).
Interestingly, they almost always, eventually, rejected the idea. Usually it was their wives who made it crystal clear that their husbands had another thought coming if they believed their wives were going to up sticks, leave families, jobs and friends, ājustā for tax reasons. I used to urge them - perhaps strangely for a tax adviser - not to let tax tails wag dogs, unless the amounts at stake were absolutely vast, and life changingā¦One turned down a Ā£5m potential saving as he loved his wife too much (so he claimed)!
Thanks for the clarification @George1 , much appreciated. So as expected, if I sold while French resident then Iād be paying capital gain in UK. I wonder what the situation would be if you had a 10 year French residence permit and moved back into the UK property for day, a one/two year period. Would you be UK resident during that time, but then also be able to return to France and maintain residency? Ummmmš¤
I think if you were in the UK for more than 6 months you would be fiscally resident there and hence be taxable in the UK rather than France. I imagine you would have to persuade the French authorities that you were not fiscally resident in France for that period, which could be tricky? However, none of that has anything to do with actual residency, for which the rules are completely different and, as @JaneJones says, if you are a permanent French resident, you can be absent for up to 3 years.
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And if you have a WARP card, five years allowed.
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So looks like that could be a way to lessen the impact of your capital gains bill, if you were so inclined. Thanks also @AngelaR and @JaneJones for the inputs
I agree (spending 183 days or more in UK in a particular UK tax year) would automatically make you UK tax residentā¦as would having your only home in the UK for 91 dyas + in a row and you visited/stayed in it for at least 30 days in the UK tax year concerned. For the many other permutations, and non-automatic ways of becoming UK tax residentā¦
statutory-residence-test-flowchart.pdf (152.1 KB)
I remember that combination of tests. Easier to get caught by than to try to get out of in my experience anyway! Thereās also something tricky about having been tax resident at any time in the past three years meaning you are assumed to be tax resident now? Youāre the tax expert @George1 so I could have got muddled about that one - I only remember I had a real job convincing HMRC that I wasnāt tax resident any more 
The old tax saying goes that UK tax residence has a very āadhesiveā quality. Like glue, it is really hard to shake it off, bar (simplifying) ridding yourself of UK accommodation, really limiting visits to the UK, and establishing a home overseasā¦
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Yes indeed! There were 5 tests I seem to remember and the number you had to satisfy in order to escape increased with the number of days you were in the UK. I like the term āadhesiveā 
This was taken to extremes by Hotblack Desiato who famously spent a year dead for tax reasons.
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H2G2 trivia:
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The slight complication is that the french rules for tax residency are not the mirror image of the UK ones. They donāt mention 183 days. So you can be caught between the two and need to ask the two tax authorities to make a decision.
You can only get (full) private residence relief on a property if -
- you have one home and youāve lived in it as your main home for all the time youāve owned it
- you have not let part of it out - this does not include having a lodger
- you have not used a part of your home exclusively for business purposes (using a room as a temporary or occasional office does not count as exclusive business use)
- the grounds, including all buildings, are less than 5,000 square metres (just over an acre) in total
- you did not buy it just to make a gain
You can get partial private relief for the time you lived in it as a home plus an extra 9 months I think as someone mentioned.
Interestingly the site notes -
If youāre not resident in the UK for tax, you only pay tax on gains since 5 April 2015.
Hereās a link -
It isnāt used but it could be, so it is a working pool as far as the tax people are concerned. Outbuildings cost as well.
I probably pay about the same as you do, by the sound of it.
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Whatever the rules were, i sold a flat bought in 2002, sold in 2020, Iād never lived in it full time and let it out. I also read the date as 2016 from when the gain was calculated and because i was a French resident basically paid no CGT. As a UK resident it would have been in excess of Ā£20,000 because you get no concession for having owned it a long time.
Makes sense, the part of your gain from 2016-20 would be 4/18 of your approx 200K gain, so about 18% of 22K which is 4K CGT - less than your annual CGT allowance, so no UK tax.