Changing ownership of house.

georgeandmary

I own outright my house. I wish to change the title deeds to owning part of the house and the remaining part to my 4 children. Is this legal also what is involved and is there any drawbacks?
I thank anyone who can give me guidelines on this.

agrinnall

I would suggest you speak to a solicitor who can determine why you would want to do this and advise whether it is the best way to achieve what you hope to.

tea-bag

As far as I am aware you can only have 4 names on a property deeds

Yorkie1

What you hoping to achieve - what is the impetus behind this proposal?

Assuming you can have 5 joint owners, what would happen is that all of you would be recorded as the owners of the whole property at the land registry, but you can then record that you hold it as tenants in common in particular proportions.

This is relevant on death - a tenant in common can bequest their proportion to someone else, whereas a joint tenant's share cannot be bequeathed and will automatically go to the remaining joint tenants.

Annisele

I think the first answer you got is likely the best one - getting this wrong would be seriously expensive. Forums are good for general information, but you want proper paid for advice if you do go ahead.

Are you willing to say why you want to do this? Many of the drawbacks depend on your circumstances. Some potential problems (by no means an exhaustive list):

If you're trying to reduce your estate's inheritance tax bill, just gifting part of the house to your children won't do anything. If you carry on living in the house, and don't pay a market rent, HMRC will treat it as a "gift with reservation", and tax you anyway.

If you're trying to reduce your capital to avoid care home fees, or keep your money from creditors, or a vengeful ex-spouse (etc), you might be treated as though you still had the money you gave away. In extreme cases a court could unwind the transaction. (On what you've posted that's very unlikely; I'm just trying to illustrate the impossibility of giving an exhaustive list).

One of your children could get divorced or go bankrupt, and they might end up having to try to force a sale of your house to pay their liabilities.

If your children don't live with you, then when the property is sold they'll have to pay capital gains tax. You get capital gains tax relief because it's (presumably) your main residence - but your children would be taxed.

G_M

The simple aswer is that

1) if you have a mortgage you will need the lender's permission which will be hard to get

2) if you have no mortgage it is fairly straightforward - fill in the relevant Land Registry forms

But as ohers have said, you need to fully understand the implications - and therefore your motives for this become very relevant

* Capital Gains Tax?
* Deprivation of Assets?
* control in the event of changed circumstances in the future?
* Inheritance Tax?

You need to speak to a solicitor and/or financial adviser and clearly articulate your aims.

Land_Registry

If the property is in England or Wales then our online guidance explains how to transfer ownership

Others have already posted re the issues involved and how getting legal/financial advice (for each of you) would be recommended.

From a registration perspective we would only register the first 4 named in any Transfer so ensuring each interest is protected is important as suggested