Even with moderate price growth during the period when the property is held as a rental, a sell and rebuy approach would still produce a lower CGT liability.
I'm increasingly convinced that @Bronte's advice to "bank the CG and start again" is the right approach from a CGT perspective.
I've done a table below. It's based on CSO average prices for all properties since 2005. I'm assuming a 10% fall in prices in 2020 compared to 2019, and then 2% pa increase after that. It's the CGT payment as a share of selling price in a given year, based on converting from a PPR to rental in 2020, conditional on what year the property was purchased.
As you can see for boom-era purchases it takes a long time and/or a big increase in prices for CGT to become material. For purchases 2011-2015 it begins to bite pretty soon.
If anyone sees what looks like an error please let me know.
Can you elect your PPR in a scenario where you have two houses (1 actual ppr and 1 rental)?
If you sell the rental can you elect to use ppr relief for a certain period for the sold rental and therefore forego the ppr relief for your actual ppr if and when you were to sell actual ppr?
Can you elect your PPR in a scenario where you have two houses (1 actual ppr and 1 rental)?
If you sell the rental can you elect to use ppr relief for a certain period for the sold rental and therefore forego the ppr relief for your actual ppr if and when you were to sell actual ppr?