Rents query and money lost on investment

[chrisl]

3 Years ago I invested in a new Hotel being built in Florida, I invested in 2 rooms, unfortunately the developer and his Bank ran into trouble at the start of the credit squeeze and went under. I got some money back that was sitting in escrow but I lost around £50k.

Now I know that I would have paid tax on any rentals or profits that I may have made if I bought the income back to the UK but where do I stand on the loss that I have suffered, can I reclaim as a tax loss in some way?

[Moscow Mule]

I assume what you invested in would have been taxed as capital gain (you bought an asset?). In which case, this might be useful: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2001...pitalgainstax1

[ChimpMaster]

You can only offset a capital loss against a capital gain. You can carry this loss forward to offset future capital gains - for example, selling a BTL property you might have gained on.

It's possible that - if you have a large stash in your Co account - you can close down the company, apply ESC16 (or whatever it's called now) and take most of it as a capital gain, and then offset the loss against this gain.