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Two questions regarding a UK property initially financed by a EUR mortgage, but now with GBP mortgage.

I am an Irish citizen living in the UK since 2005. In 2006 I bought a UK property but funded it with a EUR mortgage with a bank in Ireland (not a great decision but interest rates were much better in Ireland at the time)

In 2015/2016 tax year I have since paid off the entire EUR mortgage and taken out a GBP mortgage. However given the movevements in EUR/GBP since I took out the mortgage and paid it back, I have suffered a paper loss.

e.g. EUR50,000 in 2006 = ~£33,500 but EUR50,000 in 2015 = ~£40,000 so aside from the capital repayments, the cost of my loan went up.

  1. I know I can deduct any interest paid, but is there any way I can calculate this FX loss and write this off against my tax bill?

  2. When paying down the EUR mortgage with the GBP funds of my new mortgage I had to convert a large amount of GBP to EUR. The FX company charged a spread in the rate for the transaction, but didn't charge me any explicit FX fee. Is there any way I can calculate this and write this off against tax? I know HMRC publish monthly EUR/GBP FX rates, so could I calculate the difference between what I paid with their rate and write the difference off as a cost?

Thank you in advance

Ciaran

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I spoke to HMRC and they said #1 is not allowable but #2 is. They suggested using either their published exchange rates or I could use another source. I suggested the Bank of England spot rates and that was deemed reasonable and allowable.

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