Lee Sharpe looks at a recent tax case that considered whether an option to buy something was actually an option or perhaps more importantly, when there was a choice.
In my article last month (‘Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence’), I looked at an interesting case, Raveendran v HMRC [2024] UKFTT 00273 (TC), which helped a family demonstrate that funds provided by a sibling amounted to a loan, rather than a beneficial (CGT-able) interest in the property. Notably, this was despite HMRC’s complaint that the brother was unable to provide contemporaneous evidence that he did not own the property – which could be seen as something of a challenge, even at the best of times.
This month’s article looks at a similar issue in relation to loan funding and where there is ostensibly an option to buy the property acting as collateral.
