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Why Can't You Gift a House?
Comments
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Other than them being a pain to wrap up, I'm not sure why you have the idea that you can't gift property?
Christo and Jeanne Claude managed to wrap the reichstag ...all be it it did take them 24 years to do itSpelling courtesy of the whims of auto correct...
Pet Peeves.... queues, vain people and hypocrites ..not necessarily in that order.0 -
It appears I didn't explain myself properly... or people didn't understand:
Why can't you gift property for free.
If I give someone £10, they get £10. If I give someone a car, they get the whole car, no other payment necessary.
But with houses, there is always the tax payment. It's this that I don't understand. With everything else (that I am aware of), it's free... a gift. With property, it's never free.0 -
It can be free to the recipient. So yes, it's a free gift.
If you gift someone a car, they need to pay tax before they can drive it.
If you gift someone money (OK, not £10, but say £1000) they may lose entitlement to receive Benefits.
Tax is levied on all sorts of things by the government, not just property.
Your question seemd to focus on the 'gift' given by A to B, and a house is no different to a £10 gift or car in that it can be free.
If you are asking about tax, or benefits, or then that is a different Q entirely.0 -
anotheruser wrote: »It appears I didn't explain myself properly... or people didn't understand:
Why can't you gift property for free.
If I give someone £10, they get £10. If I give someone a car, they get the whole car, no other payment necessary.
But with houses, there is always the tax payment. It's this that I don't understand. With everything else (that I am aware of), it's free... a gift. With property, it's never free.
If you gift someone £10 cash, yes they get £10. Yes, that small sum is "free".
However, if you gift someone £10,000,000, then that large sum is not "free". There is tax. Just like property.0 -
anotheruser wrote: »It appears I didn't explain myself properly... or people didn't understand:
Why can't you gift property for free.
If I give someone £10, they get £10. If I give someone a car, they get the whole car, no other payment necessary.
But with houses, there is always the tax payment. It's this that I don't understand. With everything else (that I am aware of), it's free... a gift. With property, it's never free.
I understand that a questions sometimes need clarification but getting from -
Why Can't You Gift a House?
To
Why does SDLT exist?
...is a bit of a jump.0 -
The main difference is the amount involved, and the fact the house is more likely to have appreciated in value (and therefore incur a CGT liability) than, say, a car.anotheruser wrote: »It appears I didn't explain myself properly... or people didn't understand:
Why can't you gift property for free.
If I give someone £10, they get £10. If I give someone a car, they get the whole car, no other payment necessary.
But with houses, there is always the tax payment. It's this that I don't understand. With everything else (that I am aware of), it's free... a gift. With property, it's never free.0 -
You will also have to pay stamp duty if you want to give someone shares (assuming the value of the shares is above the stamp duty threshold).
I believe there is also a registration fee if you want to give someone a car. I accept this probably doesn't cover much more than the DVLA's running costs but it is still a tax.
It isn't just houses, although I accept that the stamp duty on property transfers is larger than the similar taxes on other types of asset.0 -
Capital Gains Tax on a gifted artwork could be huge.
Let's not forget Inheritance Tax. If the donor dies within 7 years this could be levied on a gifted house, a car, a cash gift, a work of art, anything..........0 -
The reason that you have to pay CGT on houses is that they have a useful life of more than 50 years. Therefore you have to pay CGT on the increase in value.
Most other assets such as cars don't have a useful life of over 50 years.
If you gifted an expensive antique then you would also have to pay CGT if it had increased in value.
If you gifted money then there will be no CGT but depending on the amount gifted and how long you live after gifting it your estate might have to pay inheritance tax.0
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