CGT valuation for a Hervey Bay holiday house or former home

Two kinds of Hervey Bay property raise capital gains tax questions more than most. One is the holiday house kept for family use and sometimes let. The other is a home the owner moved out of and then rented or left empty. Both can need a market value at a date that has already passed.

A holiday house is a CGT asset

The ATO's list of CGT assets and exemptions names holiday houses alongside rental properties and vacant land. The main residence exemption is for a home, and you can only apply it to one property at a time. If you own a home elsewhere and a holiday house in Urangan or Torquay, choosing the full exemption for the home means reporting a capital gain or loss on the holiday house when it is sold.

A holiday house you never lived in starts with its ordinary cost base. A valuation becomes necessary when something changes the property's tax character partway through ownership.

A former home: the six-year rule and the unlimited rule

The ATO's guidance on treating a former home as your main residence lets you keep a home's main residence status after you move out. If you rent it out, that can continue for up to six years for each period of absence. If you do not use it to produce income, for example you leave it vacant or use it as a holiday house, there is no time limit. While you make that choice, you generally cannot treat another dwelling as your main residence, apart from an overlap of up to six months when moving house.

The distinction matters for a former Hervey Bay home kept for family holidays in some years and let to tenants or holidaymakers in others. Each period of letting, and each date the arrangement changed, is a fact your accountant will want, because the outcome depends on the dates and the use rather than the address.

When the home was first rented out

The ATO page on using your home for rental or business explains a separate rule. Where a home acquired on or after 20 September 1985 is first used to produce income after 20 August 1996, and you would otherwise get only a partial exemption when you sell, you are treated as having acquired it at its market value on the day income use began. That makes the value on that day part of the gain calculation, so the valuation has to be as at that date. The rule does not apply if the property produced income from the day you acquired it.

That first-letting date is often years before the sale. The valuation then has to describe the house as it was and the market as it was on that day. Later renovations, a new deck or a replaced roof are left out, and sales that settled after the date cannot be used.

Why Hervey Bay dates need care

Records that change over time should be read as at the valuation date. The flood hazard maps for six Fraser Coast catchments, including Eli Creek and Bunya Creek, were replaced by TLPI 01/24 from 7 March 2025. A valuation dated before then reflects the mapping that applied at the time, not the current overlay.

The Fraser Coast land valuation on your rates notice is no substitute. It values the land only and leaves out the house, according to the Valuer-General's notes on land valuation methods. The current Fraser Coast figure also reflects land values at 1 October 2023, the date of the 2024 valuation given on the Department's archived 2024 page. It does not answer a CGT question at any other date.

What the ATO expects from a valuation

The ATO's page on market valuation of assets asks you to keep a report or records showing the value is objective and supported by evidence, including the purpose, the asset, the valuation date, any inspection date and the supporting records. Its longer guide, Market valuation for tax purposes, leaves the responsibility for a defensible valuation with you even when you engage a professional, and says the ATO will accept valuations that comply with recognised professional valuation standards. In Queensland, property valuers are registered under the Valuers Registration Act.

Hypothetical example: an owner lived in a Point Vernon house, moved to Brisbane and let it from a date in 2019, then sold it in 2026. If the first-use rule applies, the cost base starts from the house's market value on the 2019 letting date, using sales that had settled by then, and the six-year rule may still affect how much of the gain is exempt. The accountant works out the tax. The valuer supplies the value at the date.

Getting the date right first

Confirm the exact date with your accountant before ordering. A Hervey Bay CGT valuation can be current or retrospective. Where the question is the cost base on the day letting began, the cost base report is built for it. If the dates or uses are mixed, set them out through the contact page before ordering, so the report is prepared to the date your accountant has settled on.