Finance Act, 1996

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Residential accommodation: allowance to owner-occupiers in respect of expenditure on construction or refurbishment.

69.—(1) In this section—

“qualifying expenditure”, in relation to an individual, means an amount equal to the amount of the expenditure incurred by the individual on the construction or, as the case may be, refurbishment of a qualifying premises which is a qualifying owner-occupied dwelling in relation to the individual after deducting from that amount of expenditure any sum in respect of or by reference to that expenditure, or in respect of or by reference to the qualifying premises or the construction or, as the case may be, refurbishment work in respect of which it was incurred, which the individual has received, or is entitled to receive, directly or indirectly, from the State, any board established by statute or any public or local authority;

“qualifying owner-occupied dwelling”, in relation to an individual, means a qualifying premises which is first used, after the qualifying expenditure has been incurred, by such an individual as that individual's only or main residence;

“qualifying premises”, in relation to the incurring of qualifying expenditure, means, subject to subsections (3) and (4) (a) of section 70 , a house—

(a) the site of which is on a designated island,

(b) which is used solely as a dwelling,

(c) in respect of which, if it is not a new house (within the meaning of section 4 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1979 ) provided for sale, there is in force a certificate of reasonable cost the amount specified in which in respect of the cost of construction or, as the case may be, refurbishment of the house to which the certificate relates is not less than the expenditure actually incurred on such construction or refurbishment, as the case may be, and

(d) the total floor area of which—

(i) is not less than 30 square metres and not more than 125 square metres in the case where the house is a separate self-contained flat or maisonette in a building of two or more storeys, or

(ii) is not less than 35 square metres and not more than 125 square metres in any other case;

“refurbishment” has the same meaning as in section 68 .

(2) Subject to subsection (3), where an individual, having made a claim in that behalf, proves to have incurred qualifying expenditure in a year of assessment, the individual shall be entitled, for that year of assessment and for any of the 9 immediately subsequent years of assessment in which the qualifying premises in respect of which the individual incurred the qualifying expenditure is the only or main residence of the individual, to have a deduction made from the individual's total income of an amount equal to 5 per cent. of the amount of that expenditure:

Provided that a deduction shall be given under this section in respect of qualifying expenditure only in so far as that expenditure falls to be treated under section 70 (5) as having been incurred in the qualifying period.

(3) Where qualifying expenditure in relation to a qualifying premises is incurred by two or more persons, they shall be treated as having incurred the expenditure in the proportions in which they actually bore the expenditure and the expenditure shall be apportioned accordingly.

(4) Section 198 (inserted by section 18 of the Finance Act, 1980 ) of the Income Tax Act, 1967, is hereby amended, in subsection (1) (a), by the insertion of the following subparagraph after subparagraph (xvi) (inserted by section 7 of the Finance Act, 1995 ):

“(xvii) so far as it flows from relief under section 69 of the Finance Act, 1996, in the proportion in which they incurred the expenditure giving rise to the relief,”.

(5) The provisions of section 70 shall have effect for the purposes of supplementing this section.