Tenancy agreement was a sham to deceive council

In September 2010 the taxpayer bought a house for his sister but said she was the real owner. He had been persuaded to buy it by his family because he was in a position to obtain a mortgage but his sister was not. In June 2015 he sold the property to her. In the meantime the sister rented the house from him. The taxpayer said he never received any rent from her and his mortgage had been paid by his family. HMRC said there was a rental agreement and raised discovery assessments to collect tax on the alleged payments.

The First-tier Tribunal found that although the taxpayer denied signing a tenancy agreement he accepted when he saw the document at the hearing that he had. However the judge found that the taxpayer had been pressurised into signing it and was unaware of what it was...