Tenants in Common (A little advise needed to confirm severence of joint tenancy)

andyuk2005

Hi All,

I've been looking at the process of severing the beneficial joint tenants ownership of my parents main home. This is to allow the property to be held as tenants in common, which can help in a number of ways from inheritance purposes to helping to reduce care home costs.

I believe I've got the process down quite easily, just wanted to check with a knowledgeable person or expert to check that this is fine. It appears that the process is actually incredibly easy by simply filling in a form, its just taken a fair bit of research to do it. It appears no one is too keen on making it practical to do by yourself! Or at least make the information available to do it yourselves!

So maybe if this is a simple way to change your agreement to tenants in common, we can set up a guide for this site. Something I personally will be proud of!!

So...
The situation I have is simple: My two married parents own the main home outright, and currently own it as beneficial joint tenants. They wish to change this to tenants in common.

As per the public guide (18) from the land registry on ownership types (http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/public_guide_018.pdf)
it states that:

4.1 Changing from a beneficial joint tenancy to a tenancy in common.

This is sometimes known as ‘severance of the joint tenancy’ and is normally done by a notice of severance or by a new or amended trust deed entered into by all the owners. Other evidence of severance is possible. Your conveyancer will advise you on whether you should or how you can do this. If you sever your joint tenancy, you must apply to Land Registry on form SEV (or form RX1) to enter a Form A restriction on your register. The form SEV must be signed by either:
— a conveyancer on behalf of all of you
— all of you as applicants, or
— one or more of you
with
either:
— the original or a certified copy of the notice of severance given by one owner to the other(s) together with a conveyancer’s certificate or a statutory declaration by the applicant confirming that notice has been served on the other owner(s),
or
— the original or a certified copy of the notice of severance signed by the owner(s) on whom it has been served. The Form A restriction does not itself change the ownership from a beneficial joint tenancy to a tenancy in common. The restriction only reflects the change you have made. You should keep the (new or amended) trust deed or Notice of Severance in your record of ownership. If you are completing form SEV without the help of a conveyancer, the examples set out in Appendix A – Example form SEV application for consensual severance of joint tenancyand Appendix B – Example form SEV application for unilateral severance of joint tenancy will help you. Use the ‘consensual’ example where all the owners are applying and the ‘unilateral’ example where only one of you is applying. Send the completed and dated form to the relevant Land Registry office (see section 7 Contacting Land Registry). No fee or covering letter is required.


I've highlighted the main points in red, which I believe is the most simple and easy way to do it. Basically, one owner serves the other with a notice (or letter I would imagine) stating that they wish to sever the joint tenancy and then sign it. Then the other also signs to confirm they have received the letter and they agree to it. This is then sent with completed form SEV (http://www1.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/SEV.pdf)
to the regional land registry office. Apparently there is also no fee involved, meaning that this should be completely free, and no expensive solicitor costs involved! Probably saving hundreds of pounds, no that’s money saving!

Is it possible someone can confirm the above, and also provide an example/template of a notice of severance?

Any further input will be great also. I believe lots of people will be looking to do similar as I've found lots of people stating that you should do it, but not how to do it.

Many thanks

Andy

ILW

You can do it yourself, but a conveyancer should charge no more than about £100

timmyt

severance alone is meaningless for any purpose other than directing the share to a 3rd party on death....but you should do a will, as they remain joint owners for the purpose of everything else whether they are tenants in common or joint tenants.

martindow

andyuk2005 wrote: »

Hi All,

I've been looking at the process of severing the beneficial joint tenants ownership of my parents main home. This is to allow the property to be held as tenants in common, which can help in a number of ways from inheritance purposes to helping to reduce care home costs.

If this would is being done as a way of reducing care home costs could it not be considered as deprivation of assets?

andyuk2005

ILW, I have confirmed with the land registry that the process of changing ownership agreement is completely free, you may only have to pay for the stamps. So although you can do it through a conveyancer, this way will probably be a lot simpler and save you hundreds of pounds!

Thanks timmyt, yep thats correct that the change in ownership agreement will be meaningless unless a will is written as all assets are transferred to the spouse upon death otherwise.

Martindow, I am not sure what you mean by deprivation of assets, can you please expand? I believe that doing this process of changing owenership agreement type is commonplace when trying to reduce long-term care bills when means tested by the council.

Just to confirm, I have spoken to the land registry, and they have confirmed that in this simple situation, all that is required by them to change ownership from joint tenants to tenants in common is proof of severance between the parties (a letter which has been sent from one to the other declaring this, signed and dated should be sufficient, althought the land registry may serve notices on both parties just to be sure) and a completed SEV form. These two documents will then create a 'Form A' restriction on the ownership, and consequentially the property will be held as tenants in common.

I will be going through this with my parents and will let you know how I get on.

Thanks!

kingstreet

Deprivation of assets is gifting/spending to reduce your assets to facilitate speedier council care provision.

Age UK guide;-

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/home-and-care/care-homes/deprivation-of-assets-in-the-means-test-for-care-home-provision/

Catti

There are many instances when severing a joint tenancy is not necessarily the right thing to do. Legal advice should really be taken to check specific circumstances.

Richard_Webster

Subject to the points made by others, i.e. be sure it is going to do what you want it to do, then I don't even think you need a notice of severance.

You simply complete Box A in panel 7 of the SEV form and both of you sign it and send it to the Registry.