My husband and I purchased a property outright in July 2012. We had been led to believe that my husband's sister who received benefits would be able to live there and she could claim housing benefit to pay us rent. In the end, this benefit was deemed not to be payable. She lived there until 2016 when she was allocated a council property. We then sold the property. We never received any rent from her, and we never lived there ourselves, due to having our own property. I am unclear whether we can claim capital gains tax lettings relief.

Arthur Weller replies:
If you look at HMRC’s guidance (www.gov.uk/hmrcinternal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg64650), you can see that lettings relief is only available for a house in which the taxpayer lived as their main residence, but a housethat has never been lived as the taxpayer's main residence is not eligible for lettings relief. So you cannot claim lettings relief. If it is any consolation, you would not have been able to claim lettings relief even if she would have paid you rent.