Buy to Let Mortgage Tax Relief

[eca00cdy2]

Scenario :
Married Couple. One higher tax earner. One non-tax payer. We own the house jointly.

I realise we have to split rental income - expenses equally..fair enough. So I pay 40% on mine and she pays 0% on hers. Even with this split my wife would still be within her personal tax free allowance.

As the higher rate tax earner can I claim all interest tax relief myself or does this have to also be split 50/50. Can't see anything in HMRC guidelines on this..

[maths]

In the absence of an election jointly owned property (i.e. husband and wife) irrespective of the beneficial ownership percentages any profit is automatically split 50/50.

If an election is made the profit may be split in accordance with the beneficial ownership percentages (e.g. 80/20; 70/30 etc).

However, any attempt to split, say, interest expense other than in line with the agreed percentages is likely to fail.