2 things that spring to mind:
1) Gift of property to a child is deemed to be @ market value
2) Assuming your parents are going to continue to live there - gift with reservation of benefit rules will apply
I know there are a lot of knowledgeable folk on here so thought I'd ask before approaching a solicitor etc.
My parents have stated that when they pass they want their family home to be split equally among their children i.e. my siblings and I.
We, the siblings have all moved out over the last several years and my sister is the only one left in the house along with my parents.
All siblings who have moved out don't want a share of the house as we are fortunate to be in the positions we are, instead we want the complete house to go to my sister (the one that lives with them).
My parents are happy for that to happen, and are keen to do it now rather than when they pass.
This will be a transfer from my parents name into my sister's with no money changing hands.
The mortgage has been fully paid off about 2 years ago.
My parents are in their 60s and my sister in her 30s if that makes any difference.
How do we go about this?
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2 things that spring to mind:
1) Gift of property to a child is deemed to be @ market value
2) Assuming your parents are going to continue to live there - gift with reservation of benefit rules will apply
I advise on these things; or rather I tell the elderly clients (and here your parents are in their 60's so are not old) that I would rather shoot them that advise them to do this
Daughter falls out with them / gets into financial difficulty / mortgages it without their knowledge / marries & divorces etc etc. Recipe for total disaster. And yes - all these things DO happen
Doesn't work for IHT purposes
Am sceptical about care home costs avoidance
Just tell your parents to gift the house on the 2nd death to their daughter
I wanted to "transfer", my house over to my daughter a few years ago.
I phoned a solicitor...he advised me not to do it? Saying she could get made bankrupt, get married then divorced lose her half of the house to her ex husband etc etc.........
He didnt want me to do it..I wanted to do it, mainly because...Im divorced, so if I get taken into care , I will lose the house, plus pensions and savings etc to pay for the care. (its happened to my mum).
I keep meaning to see a financial advisor, to see the best way around it.
Good luck to you,
Does a 'right of residence' not trump all the possible pit-falls mentioned above?
My parents transferred their house to my brother and I, and we then granted them both right of residence until their death.
Legislation has changed a lot on this in recent years. Ask a solicitor and a good tax advisor
This is something I’m interested in as my parents are divorced but my mother as a new partner,not married and she wants me to have the house .
Has her partner is younger than her she doesn’t want him to have it as he as his own house anyway.
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Would it be possible to simply be added to the mortgage deed and therefore the house will pass to the remaining individuals, named on the mortgage deed, upon the demise of any party - and surely then all named individuals would be required to agree to any change or sale, but of course there may be some potential liability if one became backrupt etc. - not sure if this would work for some scenarios or not.
I have no real IHT or CGT issues in my jurisdiction at present. Obviously gift with reservation or potential exempt transfer rules and other tax implications might apply depending on where you reside/the parents reside.
It's just a matter of time...
I don't know what the law is now but a few years ago I was advised to put everything in a trust to prevent the government claiming it in case of you needing care.
An actual lawyer will be along shortly but surely a right to residence is a agreement between party X (the owner of the house) and party Y (the people living in it). I cannot see how Party Z (the people who seize the house) have to honour this if it's seized as part of a bankruptcy?
Last edited by Alansmithee; 15th May 2018 at 16:59.
“anyone wanting to take a significant step of transferring what for most people is their main asset should take the right professional advice and not skimp on the cost”
This
Seek out the best professional advice and go for a proper Solicitor who specialises in this area.
approximately 10 years ago my grandmother went into a care home, in excess of 7 years before she went into the home here assets were put into trust, with the trustees being one of her grand children on each side of the family, one being me. She unfortunately died a few years back, but fortunately due to the rules around trusts and the fact that her assets had been in trust for in excess of 7 years they were treated favourably for tax purposes and were also untouchable by the care system. I couldn't re-mortgage the house, or get a loan against it or anything else nefarious without a co-signature from my cousin and vice versa. The assets were split 50:50 once the trust was dissolved though if the trust was not to be split equally it would have been possible also.
I would recommend maybe looking to set up a joint trust between the children so that no one can deviously or via divorce etc tinker with the assets. Yet when the time comes the trust can leave everything to one of the trustees.
The exact methodology to achieve this though will require professional advice - and will require nothing to have changed in the legal system since the last time i looked!
We actually got around to making a will out a few months ago. We have two children. The house money being eaten by care home fees for the remaining partner if they went into care were one of our concerns. What we did was pay the solicitor about £100 (I think you can do this yourself) to have us changed from being joint tenants to tenants in common. When the first of us die, instead of the other partner inheriting the whole house where it will all be at risk of being sold for care home fees (if needed), our two children will inherit the half of the recently deceased. The house cannot be sold until the surviving spouse dies. If the surviving spouse never needs care before they die, all well and good and the kids then inherit the other half of the house. There’s a bit more to it than that but that’s the essence of it. At least the kids are guaranteed 50% of the house value in a worse case scenario.
Could the OP not get the sibling to become a tenant in common with her parents?
The right of residence was put in place for this exact scenario (bankruptcy/divorce/etc) and I can’t see the point of it otherwise.
I’ll be very upset with the solicitor if it doesn’t do as it says on the tin.
From a quick Google it appears to put a burden on the land, as far as land registry is concerned (the right of residence did have to be registered with LR)
Last edited by demonloop; 15th May 2018 at 19:39.
If your solicitor has told you this would work then I'd take his word for it as he's the qualified person and I'm not. I'm just surprised that if the creditors got a possession order and served an eviction note which are generally worded to cover anyone living there that you'd just be able to stay (for free?).
I'm interested in this too. I have no technical knowledge on the subject, but instinctively there must be a period (regardless of whether the property is put into trust or transferred to an individual) beyond which there can be no claw-back for nursing home fees?
For instance, it would be harsh to try to overturn something carried out say 20 years earlier, but maybe that is the case!
The solicitor I spoke to, said they can, and will! go back many years.
In my humble view, people are living longer, due to better health education and better prevention of..eg. heart disease, diabetes, also ,thankfully, cancer is a lot more treatable these days (I speak with personal experience!).
So the way I see it? The longer people are living now, the more cases of dementia , Alzheimers etc are affecting the population.
A financial time bomb is waiting to explode, as in my opinion, lots more people will be taken into care in the future, care is very expensive!
It has to be paid for of course.....
I just think, this government, or the next, needs a serious think about whats going to happen with care home fees/funding etc in the very near future!
I advise on these things too. It’s worth mentioning that a gift of a half share of the family home to an adult child who lives in the home and pays half of the household bills and maintenance costs can be effective for IHT purposes, as I’m sure you knew. But it isn't straightforward and as you rightly say is potentially fraught with pitfalls.
Exactly.
It really is worth taking up with a solicitor - ideally one who is an experienced trust & estate specialist. There are many ways of achieving the result outlined by the OP that could secure the gift as well as protect the parents, each with their own risks and benefits from a practical-legal point of view - and the tax aspects are a further layer of complication on top.
Getting it wrong is a nightmare of sorting out. Get some good advice from an expert before you start.
We looked into this when my Dad died and my Mum wasn't well. We took legal advice and also talked to our local council and the council where Mum lives to see what the 'rules' on how long they would go back to check on Nursing Home fee avoidance measures. There was absolutely no time limit. A friend up in Yorkshire had an investigation into avoidance that's still ongoing and, from memory, the house and asset transfer was at least seven years ago and the council were pursuing that. We could get no definitive answer other than, with councils squeezed for cash and a lot more people needing care, they were taking action against as many people as they could to claw back as much money as they could.
I would strongly suggest asking a solicitor, first consultation is normally F.O.C., the laws change, not something one normally keeps abreast with....
We have very recently re-written our wills, and were recommended have us as 'tenants in common' rather than 'joint tenants' taking a view....
Also, the 7 year gift could probably apply, meaning the entire gift is tax free after the grantee survives these 7 years, otherwise tapers.
This is a red herring as although tapering relief is available it only reduces the amount of IHT payable if death occurs between 3 and 7 years. The gifts are taken into account first and use up the nil rate band (NRB), therefore tapering relief will only be of benefit if the gifts are in excess of the NRB, currently £325k
In Scotland as far as I'm aware there is a term called "intentional deprivation" which considers any transfer of ownership, made after a medical diagnosis that would result in the requirement for care, as a deliberate attempt to deprive the care provider of the transferred assets. Such a transfer is therefore assumed to have been made with the sole purpose of avoiding paying a contribution for care and therefore the transfer is deemed not to have taken place.
Again in Scotland as far as I'm aware if a transfer was made ahead of any medical diagnosis and if a period of seven years have elapsed since the date of the transfer then the local authorities cannot claim access to the transferred assets. I believe the seven years also avoids the transferred assets being considered part of the estate should the person transferring the assets subsequently die.
A seven year old transfer made ahead of any diagnosis of a condition requiring care or the death of the individual concerned should therefore be free from any legal requirement to contribute to care costs or to pay death duties.
The above is my understanding from historical conversations with a family lawyer, however please seek some current legal advice since these things can change.
Some more information here: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information...ion-of-assets/
regards
grant
So the moral of the story is, spend all your cash on a hedonistic lifestyle as the state will take the heap when you are unwell in later life.
I am surprised that no one else has commented upon the basic inequity in this system. Equity release is your friend here, and plan to leave nothing but debt. At least you will be remembered.
Ultimately it's freedom of choice on what to do with your hard earned and already taxed money.
Paying a mortgage is a form of saving. Some people choose to spend and never save. Yet both have the same experience in old age. The system is flawed when there's no incentive to save.
Alternatively sell your house and buy fags and booze, or watches for your kids. But hows that different than selling your house and buying them a house.
Last edited by Rodder; 16th May 2018 at 22:00.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
Not according to this article https://www.which.co.uk/elderly-care...gifting-assets
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
My Aunt, who had no children, died aged 89 and released over 90% equity in her flat for extra money which she spent. She also left a credit card bill of £5k and an unsecured loan of over £20k (which her bank sanctioned over 7 year period when she was 87!). Sounds like she had the right idea!
Totally. It amazes me how the state bends over backwards and provides everything in spades to "yoofs " in care and those who offend, never using the no word.
Contrast with those who may have worked all their lives and bought a property, then when needing care they are stripped of their possessions and dignity.
Does hard work and prudence pay in the long run?