Tell HMRC about an option to tax on property as part of cancelling your VAT registration

Before you start

If you’ve told HMRC that you’ve opted to charge VAT on land or buildings (known as an ‘option to tax’), you’ll need to tell us about this as part of cancelling your VAT registration, as this could impact on your final tax liability.

This includes information about any options to tax which have been previously excluded or disapplied. Read Opting to tax land and buildings (VAT Notice 742A) for more information.

You must submit this information if you have previously told HMRC about an option to tax on any property you have owned or still own when cancelling your VAT registration. This will help us to process your request quickly and correctly.

If you have already disposed of any land or buildings

If you have disposed of any land or buildings on which you held an option to tax, you need to make sure that the correct VAT treatment has been applied to those supplies before you cancel your VAT registration.

If VAT is due, it should be declared on the appropriate VAT return.

If you have retained an opted property, VAT may still become chargeable if either:

• after your registration is cancelled, you make further supplies of an interest in the property
• you dispose of the property at a later date without the option to tax having been revoked

Read section 8 of VAT Notice 742A more information.

What you need

You must tell us details of all properties which you have opted to tax including the:

• property address
• land registry title number (if known)
• date the property was purchased 

You must also provide details of the previous owner including:

• their VAT registration number (if known)
• the date the property was sold or disposed of
• the value or sale price of the property

We also need details of the purchaser including:

• their VAT registration number
• the date any option to tax was revoked if this happened before deregistering from VAT

Submit information to HMRC

You’ll need to sign in with your Government Gateway user ID and password. If you do not have a user ID, you can create one when you first try to sign in.

If you’re an insolvency practitioner, sign in using your email address.

Start now

If you have 5 or more properties

If you need to submit information for 5 or more properties, you can use a template in the service. This way you can submit all of the information at the same time.