Readers' forum : Better late or never?

A client has just given me his tax return information for 2017 and unbeknown to me he and his wife bought some land in October 2015. They built a house on it which they sold for £250 000 in February 2017. He is not self-employed and his main objective for me is to work out the capital gains tax profit and include it in the tax return for him and his wife. But my concern involves VAT.

First should the clients have registered for VAT because the house was a taxable sale – or was this not necessary because it was zero-rated anyway so no output tax is due to HMRC?

Second should any VAT registration be as a partnership or should he and his wife get individual registrations to reflect their 50% share in the project?

Third my client has confirmed that the services...