Although I was born and brought up in the UK, I’ve lived abroad for the last 20 years. I’m in the UK because my Mum recently passed way. I’ve used my foreign eBay account to sell 3 items and discovered eBay has charged buyers VAT on the items I’ve sold. I only discovered this when the items were already sold and explains why buyers weren’t prepared to put in bids as high as I’d expected. Is there any way to recover this VAT? If so, how? Should VAT even be charged on a sale of secondhand goods when neither party is a business?