Stamp Duty /Capital Gains / Property Gift Dilemma

[LondonJ]

I’ve been with my partner for eight years. She owns a shared property in London and I own a property in another location. Four years ago, her father passed away and left her the family home and a massive IHT bill. The house has sold this week and she wants to buy another property for us both to live in as our main residence.

My property was rented out two years ago but I moved up to London officially, three years ago to the inherited house so I could oversee the modernisation of it for sale. My partner moved in with me, leaving her other property with just her flat mate in it.

In a few weeks time, the new house will complete and our dilemma is this;

She wants to register me as a joint owner of the new house. Because I own another property, the STD increases for us by around £23,000 so approximately £48,000 will be due.

It’s a lot of money!

She’s thought about gifting me half the new house but what would the tax implications be for both of us?

The inherited house has been our main residence for three years. We don’t want to sell either of our other properties as they are our pensions really. All we want to do is finally have a place together that is ours.

It’s all so complicated!

[AGoodman]

Assuming your girlfriend is relying on the replacement provisions, there is no mortgage and you are not paying anything for the new property, the only tax implication should be an IHT risk, which i suspect you can discount.

You should not immediately register the new property in joint names. She should buy as sole owner and later transfer into joint names.