Can anyone answer this for a friend of mine. He sold his only buy-to-let in the tax year 05-06 and is now calculating his gain for cgt purposes. He made an operating loss on the property during that year and assumes that he cannot offset that loss against other non-property income. Thats right isn't it? He now wonders whether he might offset the loss against cgt on the basis that holding the property empty for the last few months is a legitimate cost of sale. He argues that if he had relet he couldn't have sold it with vacant possession which is what he wanted to do. Will he get away with this? Thanks

Colin. Are you there? Probably deluged with tax returns are you? Any chance you could answer this?