For a long time now the profits and losses of rental have been calculated in the same was as those from a business or trade. In fact renting of property is classed as a rental business. Not to be confused in any way with a trade (sparky, hairdresser, solicitors etc are a trade).
HMRC legislation does provide specific relief for expenses incurred before a business commences. Believe it or not you can claim expenditure as far back as seven years!
HMRC guidance states:
“The relief extends only to expenditure which:
- is incurred within a period of seven years prior to the commencement of the trade, profession or vocation, and
- is not allowable as a deduction in computing the profits of the trade, profession or vocation but would have been so allowable if incurred after the trade had commenced.”
Note that it does clearly say that the expense would have had to be allowable if the business was already running. This means that private expenses won’t be allowed.
For property this could present as follows. You buy a house and live in it for ten years. In year five you replace the kitchen because you are thinking of renting the house out after you move out. You move out in year eleven and try to claim a repair deduction for the kitchen. Yes it’s within seven years of the rental business commencing but it was clearly used personally for many years which means it would fail the ‘wholly and exclusively’ test that all expenditure needs to pass.
Now if you did an EICR in the months before you move out that would have a shot as you only need it for rental. It would obviously be cleaner from a tax perspective to do the work after you move out and while the property is on the market for rental but life isn’t always that crisp I suppose!