Finance Act, 1997

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

57.—(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 (2) and (3) of section 58 , a house—

(a) the site of which is wholly within a qualifying area,

(b) which is used solely as a dwelling,

(c) in respect of which, if it is not a new house (for the purposes 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 is not less than 38 square metres and not more than 125 square metres;

“refurbishment”, in relation to a building, means either or both of the following, that is to say:

(a) the carrying out of any works of construction, reconstruction, repair or renewal, and

(b) the provision or improvement of water, sewerage or heating facilities,

where the carrying out of such works, or the provision of such facilities, is certified by the Minister for the Environment, in any certificate of reasonable cost granted by that Minister in relation to any house contained in the building, to have been necessary for the purposes of ensuring the suitability as a dwelling of any house in the building and whether or not the number of houses in the building, or the shape or size of any such house, is altered in the course of such refurbishment.

(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 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—

(a) in the case where the qualifying expenditure has been incurred on the construction of the qualifying premises, 5 per cent. of the amount of that expenditure, or

(b) in the case where the qualifying expenditure has been incurred on the refurbishment of the qualifying premises, 10 per cent. of the amount of that expenditure.

(3) Where qualifying expenditure in relation to a qualifying premises is incurred by two or more persons, each of those persons 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 137 of the Income Tax Act, 1967 , is hereby amended in Part I of the Table to that section by the addition of “ section 57 of the Finance Act, 1997”.

(5) Section 58 shall apply for the purposes of supplementing this section.