RE412 - Interest paid: Loans made before 6 April 1988: What improving or developing a property includes
1999/2000 and earlier years
ICTA88/S354 (1) AND (2)
Improving or developing a property included
- any permanent addition, alteration or large scale replacement;
- repairs or maintenance needed when the property, was acquired;
- costs of decoration or repairs incidental to improvement work, but not if claimed as a Schedule A expense or otherwise;
- expenditure on street works and street lighting on any road adjoining the property, but not on normal maintenance and repair. Street works means sewering, levelling, paving, metalling, flagging, channelling and making good a road;
ICTA88/S354 (1) AND (2)
- expenditure on a number of items met by a combined loan qualifying for relief. For example
- improvements under the Clean Air Act;
- fire precaution works;
- installation of water heating and mains electricity; and
- concreting and other improvements of driveways and paths; and
- expenditure on fixtures and fittings which a departing occupier could legally have taken away if included in the first list below, but not otherwise.
The list below is of examples of improvements, but is not exhaustive.
- Home extensions and loft conversions.
- Central or Solar heating installations but not portable radiators and night storage radiators unless fixed to a permanent spur outlet. The cost of replacing one form of heating with another, for example, changing from oil to gas central heating.
- Installation of double glazing, even though it may be in a detachable form, and replacement of windows or doors generally.
- Insulation of roof or walls.
- Installation of bathrooms and similar plumbing.
- Kitchen units and bedroom units which are fixed to and become part of the building. In practice, a range of matching units, only some of which qualify, may be treated as qualifying as a whole, but not cookers, refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers and similar appliances.
- Connection to main drainage.
- Erection and cost of garages, garden sheds, greenhouses, patios and fences.
- Re-covering or reconstructing a roof.
- Construction or landscaping of gardens.
- Construction of swimming pools.
- Reconstruction (for example conversion into flats).
- Underpinning.
- Rebuilding a facade.
- Insertion or renewal of damp-proof course, dry or wet treatment.
- Renewal of electrical installation.
- Extensive re-pointing, pebble dashing, texture coating or stone cladding (but not painting).
- Installation of fire or burglar alarms.
- Installation of water softening equipment forming a permanent part of the plumbing system.
- Construction of driveways and paths.
- Extensive replacement of guttering.
