Transferal of property from my mother

[MrT]

My father passed away earlier this year leaving me his half of the family home (before he died he and mum changed the mortgage agreement to joint&several). My mother is in a nursing home and no longer has a use for the house and has said that she wants to give me her half.

What happens now, how do I go about changing ownership detail? Is there a standard form anyone could point me at on the net to print off for this to happen or should I draft up a letter stating " I Mrs@@@ herby gift my half of address@@@ to my son@@@@ etc".

How does this work and are there any tax implications for myself the property value is probably £200k. Thanks in advance

[funcrusherbill]

As an ordinary person, I did this years ago. It is dead easy; contact the Land Registry and get a form. The only problem might be that the documents you need are probably with the mortgagees, and they will usually only release them to a solicitor.

No CGT implications, but if mum is wealthy, and leaves 250k+, might be an inheritance tax eventually; but I guess that would be unavoidable anyway.

[James Smith]

MrT,

Bill's amateur analysis is broadly correct for now, but does however leave you some future issues depending on what you are planning to do with the house.

If you are planning to sell straight away then no problem, if you are planning on keeping it in your name in case your mother wants to return you will be storing up future CGT problems. If it remain in your mothers name this may not apply. From an IHT point of view this transfer is a “Potentially Exempt Transfer” meaning that is remaining in your mother’s estate for up to 7 years on a sliding scale. This may or may not be relevant based on your mothers other assets, and may or may not need to be considered for insurance purposes.

It is hard to be definite without knowing more about the estate and circumstances.

There may also be issues with the local authority who is caring for your mother as depriving herself of the property will not necessarily exempt her from the need to pay for care. Each authority works on a slightly different framework but this aspect should be considered.

Bill’s amateur analysis is unfortunately a cause of lots of the questions posted on this site to which the answer was “if you had only done X instead of Y” you wouldn’t have a problem. I know I am going to sound terribly biased but you really should take proper advice when making transactions of this size to ensure all angles are considered. If you affairs are simple you may well be able to get suitable advice within an initial free consultation so it might not even cost you anything.

Regards,

James Smith
Chartered Accountant
www.jamesesmith.co.uk
01284 764436