Part of my garden has a separate land registry reference and I am thinking of selling it. I have treated it as my garden for over 20 years. I am in my late 70s and in poor health, so am unable to take care of my garden. When I mentioned to my family that I was considering an equity release scheme they said that I should look into obtaining residential planning permission and then sell the land. A friend said that due to the different land registry references I could be liable to capital gains tax as the land could be treated as not part of my residence. Please can you advise me?

Arthur Weller replies:
If you look at HMRC guidance here: www.gov.uk/hmrcinternal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg64388 and www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gainsmanual/cg64390, you can see that since you are using the land as your garden, it does not matter that there are separate land registry references; as long as the house and garden are not physically separated (CG64367)