PWS

Just an update on VAT payments and when you might receive payment based on our experience: 5 September Letter from HMRC acknowledging claim and confirming they have everything 28 October Letter from HMRC received confirming all ok and payment will be made in 20 days (letter dated 14th) 31 October - money received in account!

Hi newhome one plot is in my sons name and the other is in ours. I agree the HMRC guidance is not clear and we couldn't find any info on our particular situation anywhere so hope its useful. I think our conclusion was to be really organised, preferably as you go along and to include an honest summary of the situation if it is unusual. Even though my wife was organised with the paperwork it still took her many hours to compile it all for the claim.

Mr Punter I'm pretty shattered after 2 builds so quite looking forward to a rest! For a bit anyway. Plus the old joints are creaking and I still have the drive to do and some landscaping. Not quite like the last time in 1980 when I did a day's bricklaying at work and then our own build in the evening.

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has posted about VAT. I have been dipping in and out of the forum whilst considering our VAT claim and it has been so useful I thought I would share our experience as it is a little more unusual. We have built two properties in our back garden one for me and my wife and one for our son. I project managed both and to help our son with finances we only charged him the net amount for materials, bearing the burden of his VAT until the end so we had a lot riding on the claim! We were confident that as I had built both properties for family members there would be no problem with the claim being in my name but we did misjudge the claim deadline which has given us a few sleepless nights. Throughout the build I had the completion certificate in mind as "the golden ticket". My wife and I moved into our house in 2018. There were a few outstanding items but nothing major apart from landscaping. Our son has only just moved in. The properties were built alongside each other at the same time but his was delayed for a few months due to his finances. Since moving in, we have badgered our building control company for the completion certificate but there was always something minor that needed doing so we only received an interim certificate in August. That's when we began to panic after reading several posts about moving in date v completion certificate. We were confident we would get the VAT on our sons property but began to wonder if we had missed the boat for ours. After reading a post about a build being "one project" I called the helpline and asked how I should sort the invoices for both properties e.g. could they just all be put together as it was one project. They said we should submit them altogether, not separated into the two properties. I found this really odd as it seemed to me it would make it much more difficult for them to wade through but it did support my argument that it was one project. I used the spreadsheet provided on here (thank you) which is much easier than writing up the form. I also attached a note being completely honest that we had moved into our property in 2018 but that as it was one project the other property was not quite finished and enclosed interim completion certificates for both. I also explained that a handful of the invoices had been ordered by our son and his partner so were not in my name. Like many on here, we sent it off with everything crossed. After a couple of weeks on 5 September we received the initial letter confirming they had everything and tentatively hoped this was good news. That letter said we should hear again within 6 weeks. After 6 weeks I called the helpline for an update but there was a recorded message saying that claimants should wait another 30 days. Finally on 21 October we received our package back and opened it with bated breath. They had agreed to the whole claim with just a query on 3 invoices and said we would receive payment in 20 working days. Two suppliers should not have charged VAT so we have re-claimed that from the suppliers. The third invoice was a deposit for stairs which had no breakdown so we have resubmitted that to HMRC with a copy of the quote referred to. We were so relieved and hope this information may help someone else.

Hi everyone. I am a retired brickie, although I haven't been "on the tools" for many years. My wife and I built our own house in 1980 when we were just 20 and 21. It was part of a self build scheme of about 10 houses in Wiltshire and we queued on the Council steps all one snowy weekend to secure our plot. With the enthusiasm of youth and only just out of my apprenticeship, we approached the bank manager for a mortgage along with the equity from the first house we'd bought 3 years before and with lots of advice from my developer employer it all paid off and we ended up in a 4 bed house which set us up for life. Seven years and two children later we decided to return to the south coast where we were from and bought a 30s bungalow with a huge garden which we extended. Over the 30 years we were there we occasionally had developers enquiring about our garden but nothing ever came of it and eventually we were landlocked anyway. In 2014, retirement was looming and we had many discussions about downsizing but we loved the area and nothing seemed right so we decided to make some enquiries about whether we could get planning in the back garden with access down our drive. Our initial thoughts were that we would sell the house with PP if we were able to. Anyway to cut a long story short, after a year of discussions with developers who gradually squeezed the numbers too much, we decided to go for the PP ourselves to build 2 properties, one for us and our son decided to let his Dad build his first home on the other plot. The cost of obtaining the PP was huge without any guarantees and loads of stress, CIL on the horizon and slow slow planners. Eventually we were very lucky to get the permission. Next came the mortgage issue. Approaching our sixties, lenders were unwilling to let us have a conventional mortgage on our existing house ( our preferred option) and the terms were too short so we went for a more expensive self build mortgage which would be repaid by the sale of our house at the end of the project. I was the project manager for both builds and my wife dealt with the finances. Our son got his own self build mortgage and we all put our stage payments into a central building account which we used for the build. I used local trades and I mucked in wherever I could to help. Being able to remain living in our existing house on site made the build really easy to organise and monitor. For costings we used various methods including estimators online and with some tight budgeting we have come in exactly or just under budget for 2 four bedroom, 2 en suite properties traditionally brick built. I have dipped into this forum occasionally but in particular for information on the VAT reclaim. We took our sons VAT on board and only charged him net costs to help with his budget so we had a lot riding on the claim. The forum has been so helpful in this respect and I will post my experience with the claim in the relevant section.