Hello all,
I think I already know the sad answer to this question, but it doesn't hurt to ask. We signed a contract on a lot in February and were told by the builder that it would be a minimum of 6 months before our house would be completed. In August (6 months later), we would have completed two years in our current home, sold our house and qualified for the capital gains exclusion. So far so good. We were surprised to learn in March that the builder had "risk-permitted" us, a term I had never heard of before. Essentially, the builder expedited all the permits and schedules and such, with the result that our build schedule was moved up two months early to an estimated finish now in June. (the best I can understand their explanation of "risk-permitted" is that they apparently select contracts that are the least likely to cancel, and move them up for some sort of positive statistic reporting benefit for the company. I don't know). The net effect was a bit of a panic. We really didn't want to lose this lot and thinking we may not qualify for our loan on the new home without the proceeds from our current home, we put our house on the market immediately. (my other reason for panic was I also didn't think I could manage two simultaneous mortgage payments, even for just two months.My third reason for panic was that I'm a natural worrier - lol) Anyway, we sold our house this month, 4 months earlier than we originally planned, and although this "risk-permitting" business was unforeseen, I've read enough posts on this group that I'm guessing it's a pretty weak case for the "unforeseen circumstance" exclusion. I've held out some money from the proceeds to prepare for next year's taxes, but thought I'd go ahead and get confirmation from the experts if my hunch is correct. Thanks, Sergio