Father wants to sign his house over to my brother and I

silvercar

I can honestly say that there will be no chance of my father going into care anytime soon and will no doubt be laughing and joking with us for many more years to come.

With all respect and wishing your father many more healthy years, he is 86. To say that statement with certainty is optimistic.

Transferring a property out of his name will risk a CGT liability if he does have many more years to come. If he doesn't have many more years the transaction will only class as a PET and run the risk of IHT for 7 years. I can't see any gain in making the transfer.

Keep_pedalling

Brandnewstart79 wrote: »

Hi and thank you for your replies.

His health is not deterioating to the extent something bad is going to happen imminently but we have spoken about putting something in place for the future. He is still mobile and active but its difficult for us to see a slight decline in him has he has been such a role model to my borther and me. We have put it down to his medication but he has been taken off most of it as the Doctor said he was taking to much.

I have read the link about Powers of Recovery and seen the following:-

"Legally, local authorities have the power to recover costs within six months of the resident approaching them for funding. If the transfer was made more than six months before this time, the local authority cannot use this law."

I can honestly say that there will be no chance of my father going into care anytime soon and will no doubt be laughing and joking with us for many more years to come.

There is actually no time limit that a LA can recover costs, the 6 month limit only applies to Section 21 of the Health and Social Services and Social Security Adjudication Act 1983, they have other powers of recovery, and in this case your father would still be the benificial owner and the only reason the transfer would have taken place is to avoide care costs.

Also, if it happened would you want him to have a choice of where he goes, or do you think the cheapest one the LA can get him into is good enough?

As for an LPA, I am in my early 60's and in good health, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow so mine is already registered. Your father could have a stroke tomorrow, and you and your brother would be powerless to act for him, delaying this is just folly.

Keep_pedalling

silvercar wrote: »

With all respect and wishing your father many more healthy years, he is 86. To say that statement with certainty is optimistic.

Transferring a property out of his name will risk a CGT liability if he does have many more years to come. If he doesn't have many more years the transaction will only class as a PET and run the risk of IHT for 7 years. I can't see any gain in making the transfer.

It would not even be PET if he carries on living there without paying full market rent.

Brock_and_Roll

Brandnewstart79 wrote: »

Hi and thank you for your replies.

His health is not deterioating to the extent something bad is going to happen imminently but we have spoken about putting something in place for the future. He is still mobile and active but its difficult for us to see a slight decline in him has he has been such a role model to my borther and me. We have put it down to his medication but he has been taken off most of it as the Doctor said he was taking to much.

I have read the link about Powers of Recovery and seen the following:-

"Legally, local authorities have the power to recover costs within six months of the resident approaching them for funding. If the transfer was made more than six months before this time, the local authority cannot use this law."
.

As per the reply above, this is nonsense. My family have been involved in residential care for 30 years and I can tell you that (cash strapped) local authorities are working much harder now to protect taxpayers money - they can and do look back through a long period. If they see a funding applicant living in a property, they will check who owns it and if they see the obvious family connection, they will work back through the land registry history.


That said, some authorities are a lot sharper than others on this.

badmemory

A power of attorney is much more important than passing the house over. The need for one can take you completely by surprise. If the local authority take over someones finances they charge the 'client' for the priviledge and you have no say in what happens.