renting out a home while living abroad

I'm probably repeating a query that's been discussed before (and I keep getting an error notice when I try to open the links to tax liability and rental income) but my question is this:

We bought our new home middle of last year and as it was a new property, didn't pay stamp duty on it. We're thinking now of maybe going abroad for six months to a year, towards the end of this year. Can we rent our house out? What about the stamp duty - do we become liable to pay the full sum as our house won't be our main residence and we're getting an income from the house? I presume we'd pay tax on the rental income?

Re our mortgage, we currently have a tracker with the Ulster Bank. We were thinking of changing to an interest only mortgage for the period we are away. Is this advisable?

Any advice or links would be most welcome. Thanks, Katie

If the property ceases to be your Principal Private Residence (PPR) and you rent it out within five years of purchase as an owner occupier then you are liable for a clawback of stamp duty as outlined in . You will also probably be liable for CGT on some portion of the eventual resale gain - see . You will also need alternative cover since most owner occupier buildings/contents policies only cover the owner occupier and not a rental situation and you will probably need to inform your lender that you will be renting the property. The and, in particular, [broken link removed], might be worth reading

Re our mortgage, we currently have a tracker with the Ulster Bank. We were thinking of changing to an interest only mortgage for the period we are away. Is this advisable?

might be of interest to you. might also be of interest in relation to the sell or rent issue.

Hope this helps.

Thanks! I will look into all those links now. Much appreciated.

I think there is an exemption to the Capital Gains Tax impacts if you are moved abroad by your employer. Check out Revenue.ie for more details.