How to Fill Out and Submit Form VAT1614A: Option to Tax

Form VAT1614A is the notification you send to HMRC when you decide to charge VAT on income from land or buildings that would otherwise be exempt. You must get it to HMRC within 30 days of making the decision, signed by someone with authority to bind the entity, and identifying the property clearly enough that HMRC can link the option to the correct parcel.¹ Once filed, the option binds you for at least 20 years and every rent, licence fee, or sale price from that property carries VAT at 20 percent.²

What Filing the Form Commits You To

Commercial rent and sale proceeds are exempt supplies by default, which blocks you from recovering the VAT you pay on purchase costs, refurbishment, and professional fees. Filing VAT1614A flips the property to taxable at 20 percent, so your tenants and buyers pay VAT and you recover the input tax on related costs.³

Two features of the option catch people out. The option attaches to you, not to the building: if you sell, the buyer decides independently whether to opt. And each property needs its own decision and its own VAT1614A. One form per property.

Who Can Sign

The notification is only valid if signed by someone with legal authority to make the decision for the entity. HMRC’s list of acceptable signatories includes:²

Sole trader: the business owner.
Partnership: any partner named on form VAT2 in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; any partner in Scotland.
Limited company or CIC: a director or the company secretary.
Limited liability partnership: a designated member or any member.
Trust: a trustee.
Local authority: the Section 151 officer (Section 95 in Scotland), town clerk, head of finance, or treasurer.
Pension fund or SIPP: a trustee, or the director or secretary of a corporate trustee.

Getting this wrong invalidates the notification. If your organisation type isn’t on that list, check the full table at paragraph 7.6 of VAT Notice 742A before filing.

Filling In the Form

Download the current version of VAT1614A from GOV.UK.¹ The form is short, but each field feeds directly into your VAT record.

Entity and VAT Details

Enter your legal name exactly as it appears on your VAT registration, along with your nine-digit VAT registration number.⁴ A mismatch between the name on the form and the name on your VAT record will cause processing problems. If you are part of a VAT group, use the group registration number and the representative member’s name.

Property Identification

Give the full postal address of the land or building. For bare land, describe the location clearly or attach a plan showing the boundary; a grid reference works if you have one. The Land Registry title number field is optional but worth completing because it removes any doubt about which parcel you mean. If you are opting on discrete areas within a larger site rather than the whole thing, attach a map that clearly marks the opted land.² A plan isn’t mandatory for a straightforward building with a postal address, but it is essential when only part of a larger estate is being opted.

Effective Date

This is when VAT starts applying to supplies from the property. It can be the date you made the decision or a later date you choose. It cannot predate the decision. This date determines which invoices carry VAT and when your input tax recovery begins, so set it deliberately.

Signature and Date

The authorised person signs and dates the form. A scanned signed copy is acceptable for email submission. The signature date and the effective date are often different: the signature date records when the notification was completed, the effective date when the option takes effect.

How to Submit

Email is the expected route. Send the completed, signed form to optiontotaxnationalunit@hmrc.gov.uk. The subject line must include the property address with postcode and the effective date.⁵ Attach any plans or maps as separate files.

You will receive an automated reply confirming the date HMRC received the notification. Keep that email. Since February 2023, HMRC no longer issues formal acknowledgement or receipt letters for option to tax notifications, and the automated reply is your only proof of submission.⁵ HMRC has also stopped performing extensive validity checks on notifications, so the burden of getting the form right sits with you before you send it.

Postal submission is still permitted, but postal notifications receive no acknowledgement and no automated receipt.² If you use post, use tracked delivery and keep the confirmation. Email is faster and the only route that generates any receipt.

The 30-Day Deadline

You have 30 days from the date the decision to opt is made to get the notification to HMRC.² The clock runs from the decision, not from when the form is completed. If the board resolved to opt on 1 March, the notification must reach HMRC by 31 March.

A missed deadline does not automatically kill the option, but HMRC will only accept a late notification if you provide evidence that the decision was genuinely made when you claim. Two types of evidence tend to work:²

Direct documentary evidence: correspondence with solicitors, tenants, or surveyors referencing the option at the claimed date.
Accounting evidence plus a written declaration from a director or other responsible person confirming the decision date, showing that output tax was charged and input tax was claimed in line with the option.

Include the explanation and evidence with the late notification rather than sending them separately. HMRC decides each case on its own facts, and acceptance is not guaranteed. If HMRC refuses, the effective date shifts forward, and any input tax you recovered on the assumption the option was in place during that gap may have to be repaid.

Records to Keep

Because HMRC no longer issues acknowledgements, your own records are the only proof the option exists. Keep the signed VAT1614A, the automated email receipt (or tracked delivery confirmation for postal submissions), any plans or maps you attached, and the board minutes or internal note recording the decision date. HMRC has said it will generally no longer check its own records for evidence of past options to tax, except where the effective date is more than six years old or an insolvency practitioner is involved.⁵ A future buyer, lender, or HMRC query will land on you, and these documents are your answer.

Situations Where Filing the Form Isn’t the End of the Story

Three points sit outside the mechanics of VAT1614A but often surface for the same reader.

The option can be disapplied automatically. An anti-avoidance test in Schedule 10 can override your option where you grant a lease or sell a building that is a capital goods scheme item, the occupier will be you, someone who financed the development, or a person connected to either of you, and that occupier will not use the building mainly for taxable purposes.⁶ When the test bites, the supply reverts to exempt regardless of your notification. This most often surfaces in connected-party lettings, such as a parent company leasing to a subsidiary that makes exempt supplies.

Transfer of a Going Concern. If you later sell the property as a let commercial building and want the sale to qualify as a TOGC, the buyer must, by the transfer date, notify HMRC of their own option to tax and confirm to you that their option has not been disapplied by the anti-avoidance test.⁷ If either condition is missed by completion, the sale is standard-rated and VAT applies to the full price.

Revocation. An option to tax cannot be casually undone. It binds you for a minimum of 20 years from the effective date recorded on VAT1614A. After that period, you can revoke by filing form VAT1614J.⁸⁹ The 20-year clock runs from the effective date on the original notification, not from the purchase date or the signature date.

1
HM Revenue & Customs. Tell HMRC About an Option to Tax Land and Buildings
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HM Revenue & Customs. Opting to Tax Land and Buildings (VAT Notice 742A)
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GOV.UK. VAT Rates
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HMRC Design Patterns. VAT Registration Number
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HM Revenue & Customs. Changes in Processing Option to Tax Forms
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HM Revenue & Customs. VAT Land and Property – VATLP23500
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GOV.UK. Transfer a Business as a Going Concern (VAT Notice 700/9)
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Legislation.gov.uk. Value Added Tax Act 1994 – Schedule 10
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HM Revenue & Customs. Revoke an Option to Tax After 20 Years Have Passed