Gifting my house

lafat2007

I jointly own a house with my ex wife who is living in the house. She wants to sell the house and move nearer to her our children. The house is 50% mine and I want our children to have my 50% share in the house.
Will I have to buy the new house in joint names? (myself and ex wife)
How do I gift my 50% to the children now?
Can I gift it to my ex wife with a proviso that when she dies it is left to the 2 children?
Is the threshold per person and does it double the allowance for a couple?
Will anyone be liable for capital gains tax?

It gets complicated because I also own a house with my second wife which is my main residence.

CLAPTON

what are you trying to achieve?

why can't the house be sold; your wife has half and you have the other half of the cash raised
you then give your share to your children either now or later or in your will

Niggles

lafat2007 wrote: »

Will anyone be liable for capital gains tax?

If your first house was your main residence then you would get CGT relief for three years after you left. After that I would expect any gain to be liable to CGT.
Assuming your first wife has kept the house as her main residence she would not be liable to CGT.

00ec25

lafat2007 wrote: »

The house is 50% mine and I want our children to have my 50% share in the house.How do I gift my 50% to the children now?.Can I gift it to my ex wife with a proviso that when she dies it is left to the 2 children?.

see Clapton's reply - why complicate it.

it appears that you want the ex to be able to buy a new house using the full equity from the "old" house even though 50% of that is still yours (although you have not explained what the divroce settlement says about the current house.

Children under the age of 18 cannot legally own property in the UK, it must be held in a trust (usually with the parents as the trustees) for their benefit when they attain 18. So you may need to create a trust to do the transfer, thus much easier to sell up and pass on the cash

lafat2007 wrote: »

Will I have to buy the new house in joint names? (myself and ex wife).

that is purely a matter of your own choice, so do you want to?
Can your ex afford a mortgage on her own without your income being included - or are you referring to how the ex spends your maintenance payment? (I assume you are divorced rather than bigamous )

lafat2007 wrote: »

Is the threshold per person and does it double the allowance for a couple?
Will anyone be liable for capital gains tax?

It gets complicated because I also own a house with my second wife which is my main residence.

the CGT allowance is per owner . As per Niggles' reply, you will be CGT liable if you left more than 3 years ago.
If you do transfer ownership to the children rather than selling up for cash you will incur a CGT liability for that transaction as you can only transfer free of CGT between spouses not between parent and child, so could you afford to pay the CGT bill (if any) without having the cash from the actual sale?

margaretclare

Your main residence is the house you own with your second wife. This is the one you'd get CGT exemption on if you sold it. Are you worried about having to pay CGT on half the house you own with your ex? It sounds perfectly reasonable what your ex wants to do - move to be nearer her (your?) children. this is a difficulty, isn't it, when 2 estranged partners own 'half' a house and both want to do different things with it.

John_Pierpoint

How old are the children?