Inheritance tax question

tfridays16

My mother has recently passed away and she did not have a will. As I understand from what I have read so far, despite the fact that she did not leave a will, as she and my father (a married couple) jointly owned their house, her share automatically passes to him so that he now owns the house? And have I understood correctly that this half share of the house (and estate) would not be counted towards any inheritance tax bill (it would under £325,000) as it comes under an asset/gift left to a spouse which would be exempt? So in calculating her estate left, we just need to look at bank accounts, etc?

Provided the above is all correct, I am then massively confused as to which inheritance forms we should be preparing? I'm sure it is probably just me being stupid, but my head is all over the place at the moment. If the house is exempt, then the remainder estate will definitely be under £325,000 so I would say we don't have to worry about inheritance tax and so just need to complete the form IHT205?

Thanks for any help, it would be much appreciated at this difficult time.

Yorkshireman99

tfridays16 wrote: »

My mother has recently passed away and she did not have a will. As I understand from what I have read so far, despite the fact that she did not leave a will, as she and my father (a married couple) jointly owned their house, her share automatically passes to him so that he now owns the house? And have I understood correctly that this half share of the house (and estate) would not be counted towards any inheritance tax bill (it would under £325,000) as it comes under an asset/gift left to a spouse which would be exempt? So in calculating her estate left, we just need to look at bank accounts, etc?

Provided the above is all correct, I am then massively confused as to which inheritance forms we should be preparing? I'm sure it is probably just me being stupid, but my head is all over the place at the moment. If the house is exempt, then the remainder estate will definitely be under £325,000 so I would say we don't have to worry about inheritance tax and so just need to complete the form IHT205?

Thanks for any help, it would be much appreciated at this difficult time.

Start here to see who inherits what.

https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will

I assume your father is still alive. Married couple get two X £325,000 allowances subject to certain rules. Some Googling will tell you more as will the stickies on this thread.

nom_de_plume

Assuming the house was owner as joint tenants and not tenants in common then mum's share automatically passes to dad. Any personal bank / building society accounts in joint names automatically pass to the other names too.

Any assets owned solely by mum pass straight to dad unless their total value exceeds £250,000 where it starts to get complicated.

If mum had a considerable personal wealth IHT may come into play but, assuming her solely owned assets fall under the figure above, it does not come into effect whilst dad is still with you and mum's £325,000 allowance will be unused to add to dad's at a later date.

getmore4less

Start with IHT205 using the forms and the notes keep going till it tells you use IHT400.