IHTM46030 | More detailed guidance: dwelling-house

A person’s ‘residential property interest’, means an interest in a dwelling-house which has been the person’s residence at a time when their estate included that, or any other, interest in that dwelling-house (IHTA84/S8H(2)).

Whilst the definition of ‘dwelling-house’ clearly includes a building of the fixed bricks-and-mortar type of property, where an asset, such as a static caravan or a houseboat, has demonstrably been used as an individual’s residence you can accept it as being a dwelling-house for the purposes of the residence nil-rate band. Each case will depend on its facts.

A dwelling-house includes any land occupied and enjoyed with it as its gardens or grounds, but does not include any trees or underwood to which an election for ‘woodlands relief’ under IHTA84/S125 (IHTM04121) applies in relation to that person’s death (IHTA84/S8H(5)).

IHTA84/S8H(6) provides for the situation where a person’s estate includes a dwelling-house, but that person resides in living accommodation which is job-related (within the meaning of TCGA92/S222(8A) to S222(8D), but not S222(9) of that Act). If that person intended to occupy the dwelling-house as his residence in due course, then that intention will be taken as satisfying the requirement for occupation of the dwelling-house as a residence.