# Principal Private Residence - Sole or Main Residence



## Breninio (29 Oct 2009)

The definition of a persons PPR for most taxes i.e. stamp duty, CGT, income tax is usually worded in a similar manner i.e. the property is the persons sole _or main _property. Has anyone seen how Revenue apply the "main"residence condition in practice.

Take an extreme example, you have a non resident individual who owns a property in Ireland which they stay in any time they visit during the year, assume about 6 weeks in a year. Now say, due to the nature of their work or for whatever reason they move about frequently in their country of residence so that they did not reside anywhere else for longer than 6 weeks in the tax year. In that situation it would seem that the Irish property is their main residence for the year. It seems strange that a person with so little presence in Ireland could have an Irish PPR. However if the Irish property is not their "main" residence which property would be.

Considering the relevance of the PPR definition to numerous taxes and reliefs I am surprised that Revenue have never clarified the matter and stated that you need to be in the property x number of days in a year.

Any thoughts?


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## TomOC (13 Nov 2014)

Sorry to bring up such an old post........... but; any thoughts?


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## dublin66 (18 Nov 2014)

There are lots of questions here and the legislation provides answers to most of them.  Look at the Revenue guide on CGT page 15 - try this page for a starter.  [broken link removed]


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## Setanta12 (19 Nov 2014)

I looked at a similar question to this about 7/8 years ago.  I don't agree that there are similar definitions for a PPR across the different tax-heads.  I ended up proposing that we (the relevant Inspector & I) use the CAT definitions for residence etc.

It came down to the meaning of either 'continual' and 'continuous' - cannot recall which - for the purposes of establishing a residence somewhere.  That case centred around a priest required to live in/on church property for 5/6 days of the week with the other day in a house he inherited.  Most weeks however he would live 7 days a week on the Church grounds.

In the end, he wasn't entitled to PPR relief as we couldn't demonstrate continual/continuous living at the house he owned.  Sounds like your case is even more difficult to prove ... then again, it has been 6/7 years since I looked at this and my memory is hazy on the specifics.


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