Section 54

Under section 54 of the Act, an individual or a Hindu Undivided Family is allowed to reinvest long term capital gains arising from the sale of residential house ("the original asset") for purchase or construction of another residential house("the new asset"). The purchase of the new asset could be one year before or two years after the sale of the original asset and the construction could be within three years of sale of the original asset. The capital gain is required to be reinvested. If only a part of the capital gain is reinvested, only pro-rata exemption is made available.