Wedding Payment/Gift may be seen as Gifted Deposit?

CookieMonster

Greetings.


My daughter is getting married June 2017; she has a wedding package - £10,560 total - and is paying in instalments. About £3K due this month (Nov 16).
She is self-funding, in theory, but I plan to pay for the wedding.
I've already transferred £560 (for the string quartet!).
I had planned to give the £10K as a wedding gift on the day, but it now looks like the money will be needed before then.
(She doesn't know that I'm planning on paying £10K).


She and her fiance are now looking at houses: probably ~£230K.
They can raise their own deposit, getting mortgage in principle at the moment and then continuing to search for their first home.


Qn:
If I pay/transfer money (from my own N'wide mortgage overspend) now/before the house purchase, could this be seen as a gifted deposit for the house?


I'm not trying to wrangle past any tax laws or anything, but can you fine people please let me know what you think and possibly what I should do?


If I'm hit by a bus tomorrow I'm worth about £500K between house/insurance and pensions, so inheritance tax might apply on a gift: currently higher rate tax payer.


Any thoughts and opinions gratefully received, thanks.
Paul


(If this is in the wrong section please let me know/move it, thanks - this board seemed the most apt to me)

David_White

They'll no doubt have to confirm what the money from you is for, however the explanation of a wedding is a good reason.

As long as they can evidence they have the funds for deposit without taking your transfer into account it shouldn't be a problem.

tlc678910

Hi,
have you considered contacting the wedding people and paying for the wedding package? Your daughter could then save the money she would have paid towards the house. You could ask the wedding people to send her a letter (or even a nice card) outlining the funds have been received and that the wedding has been paid for in full as a nice surprise.

Would be a good idea to ensure wedding insurance is in place and will cover cancellation due to illness or any of the businesses involved going broke.
Tlc

ps There are no immediate tax implications for gifting someone money. Only some of it would be considered as part of your estate if you died within 7 years. see gov.uk inheritance tax you can give away 3K a year with no inheritance tax issues (exempted) you can carry unused exemption forward one year and "each tax year you can also give away" up to 5K for a child getting married with no inheritance tax implications. As the government site seems to indicate you can give away 3K plus £3K for last year (if these exemptions are unused) and 5K wedding gift it seems these amounts can add together to mean there are no inheritance tax implications (? if anyone knows better 0 I'm no expert just looked at gov.uk)

Thrugelmir

A gift of £10k shouldn't create any issues. If it's disclosed in the normal course of events.

CookieMonster

Thank you one and all for the responses:
The wheels are now in motion; I phoned (Nationwide) last night and the borrow-back funds should be with me 3-5 working days.