Due to the importance of whether or not property income tax is payable on a sale, I would like to return to this very important topic. Recently, there have often been rude awakenings because customers have given false information about their main residence in the best of their knowledge.
First of all - it is the proof of the duration of the main residence of the property to be sold that is used to determine whether or not real estate income tax (ImmoEst for short) is payable.
When is a property exempt from ImmoEst?
If it was used for personal use. In other words, the seller must have lived in the property for at least 2 years from the time of purchase/acquisition and must also be registered as living there. And this until the sale. Otherwise, exemption rule 2 comes into force: Has the property been continuously occupied by the seller for 5 years in the last 10 years (main registration is important)? Then no tax is payable either. If this is not the case, the ImmoEst is 30 % of the profit. In other words, the selling price minus the purchase price, of which 30 %. And that can really hurt, especially as many sellers assume that they will not pay tax because they have lived in the property themselves.
It is often the case that my clients have lived in the property for 2 years from the date of purchase, have then moved, have registered their main address at the new domicile and think that they are not paying any fees.
tax. If rule 2 with the 10 years does not work out, because you have only lived in the property to be sold for 3 years, you will have to pay tax. you are in for a rude awakening, because instead of 0 % you have to pay a whopping 30 % in ImmoEst.
Attention: When selling a property, do not register your main residence in the new property straight away!
This also often happens in divorce cases: Both partners own a property, one partner moves out and makes the main declaration in the new residence. The other partner remains in the property to be sold. Here it could happen that the person who has moved out has to pay 30 % tax on the sale, while the person who remains in the property does not have to pay any tax at all.
Unfortunately, very few customers think about this, and when I explain it to them when they want to sell, they are often horrified.
I also had a case of a house for sale that the client had bought from me 3 years ago. The remodelling and renovation alone took 2 years and the house was only ready for occupation after 2 years. At this time, the buyer also established her main residence. 2 years later She moved back into her house, assuming that she would not have to pay ImmoEst because she had been registered there for 2 years.
However, there is another tricky detail here: the main residence must be established within one year in order to be tax-exempt on sale. What sounds like a carnival joke is a sad reality. Even if the house is still a dump, has no roof and is therefore uninhabitable, there is no exemption from ImmoEst if the main residence can only be established after one year.
In this case, exception rule 2 must be applied: Has the house been occupied continuously for 5 of the last 10 years? If the house was your main residence for a shorter period, you are out of luck and have to pay tax.
The situation is clear for flats that are bought as an investment, i.e. rented out, where the high 30 % ImmoEst must be paid.
House sales are a little trickier, as the size of the plot up to 1,000 m² is also relevant, when a possible reclassification from grassland to building land took place and whether the house itself was built. I will dedicate a separate article to this topic.
In the case of estates/inheritances, the date on which the property was last purchased is relevant. In this case, the testator (deceased) is used as the date on which they last signed a purchase agreement. Although the heir does not get away tax-free, the ImmoEst can often only amount to 4.2 %.
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