Residence and return

My clients Mr and Mrs A who are a childless husband and wife left the UK to live permanently in Spain in July 2012 having spent 100 days here in 2012/13. The wife gave up her employment. The husband runs a business which is online and telephone-based.

They sold their house and did not set foot in the UK between departure and 5 April 2013. This seemed like a straightforward case under HMRC6: Residence domicile and the remittance basis paragraph 8.1. The clients had left the UK “permanently” and would be not resident from the day after the date of departure.

Things went very quiet and I naturally assumed that all was going well with them in the Spanish sunshine when an email arrived announcing that they would be returning to the UK and would arrive in February 2014.

Mrs A had a health...