Capital Allowances Act 1990

126Transfers of relevant interest

(1)In any case where—

(a)if a person (“the former owner”) continued to be the owner of the relevant interest in any land, he would be entitled to a writing-down allowance in respect of any expenditure, and

(b)another person (“the new owner”) acquires the relevant interest in the whole or part of that land (whether by transfer, by operation of law or otherwise),

the former owner shall not be entitled to an allowance under this Part for any chargeable period of his after that related to the acquisition and the new owner shall be entitled to allowances under this Part for the chargeable period of his related to the acquisition and for subsequent chargeable periods falling within the writing-down period.

(2)If, in a case falling within subsection (1) above, the date of the acquisition occurs during a chargeable period of the former owner or its basis period, he shall be entitled only to an appropriate portion of an allowance for the chargeable period related to the acquisition and, similarly, if the date of the acquisition occurs during a chargeable period of the new owner or its basis period, he shall be entitled only to an appropriate portion of an allowance for the chargeable period (of his) related to the acquisition.

(3)Where the new owner acquires the relevant interest in part only of the land concerned, subsections (1) and (2) above shall apply to so much only of the allowance as is properly referable to that part of the land as if it were a separate allowance.

(4)Where section 125(4) applies and the person who owns the interest into which the lease is merged is not the same as the person who owned the lease, the relevant interest shall be treated for the purposes of this Part as acquired by the owner of the interest into which the lease is merged.

(5)Where the relevant interest is a lease which comes to an end and section 125(4) does not apply, then, for the purposes of this Part—

(a)if a new lease is granted to a person who makes any payment to the outgoing lessee in respect of assets representing the expenditure in question, the new lease shall be treated as the same interest as the former lease and, accordingly, the relevant interest shall be treated as acquired by the incoming lessee; and

(b)if a new lease is granted to the person who was the lessee under the former lease, the new lease shall be treated as the same interest as the former lease; and

(c)in any other case, the former lease and the interest of the person who was the landlord under the former lease shall be treated as the same interest and, accordingly, the relevant interest shall be treated as acquired by that person.

(6)If, by virtue only of the operation of subsections (1) to (5) above and, where appropriate, section 146(2) and (3), the total allowances which, apart from this subsection, would fall to be made under this Part in respect of any expenditure during the writing-down period appropriate to it would be less than the amount of that expenditure, then, for the chargeable period in which that writing-down period ends, the allowance in respect of that expenditure shall be increased to such amount as will secure that the total of the allowances equals the amount of that expenditure.

(7)This section has effect subject to sections 127 to 133.