The question has been answered fully many times.
Your wife can gift you half the property. This does not need to be done at the land registry. A declaration of trust is sufficinet.
Repairs are not an allowable cost. It depends wat you mean by rennovations.
Thanks for the reply. I have read more of the previous replies now and am I bit more relaxed about the Declaration of Trust route. I wanted to be clear before I spoke to my solicitor as they do sometimes give you different answers.
By renovations I mean we are putting in a new bathroom and kitchen rather than just patching it up as we would when it was occupied as a BTL. We rented the property AS IS when we bought it 5 years ago ie. no large scale renovations. I looked at the CGT part of the tax return and there is a box on the Working Sheet for Improvement Costs Box F so I am thinking I can put the £8-10K renovation costs in there ?
When we make a Declaration of Trust is that only with effect from the date of the document. In other words the IR could not come back and say the last 5 years rent needs to be treated in the same way. ie. that all went to my wife