Partner moving into my one bed flat - can she be a lodger?

melanzana

Will HMRC or other checkers come out to visit and check?

Just wondered.

00ec25

melanzana wrote: »

Will HMRC or other checkers come out to visit and check?

Just wondered.

of course not

tax law requires the OP to self assess their own tax position. To do that they take professional advice if they can't work it out themselves, and then submit a tax return which they sign to say it is correct and they are legally liable for the numbers on it

HMRC may or may not check the tax return - very unlikely unless someone reports the OP to HMRC and provides very strong evidence of Op's wrong doing such that HMRC have an easy case to prosecute. All extremely unlikely

the tax position is:
The GF is sleeping with OP , that makes it a single household and any money from her to him is simply her contribution to household expenses. No tax liability on OP
The GF may want to take advice on a cohabitation agreement since her money gets her no rights if they split up

The GF co-owns a property. She is not married to the other owner so the pair of them are perfectly entitled to agree how any income received can be split, it does not have to be 50/50.

the complex but technically correct position if the GF and friend split the income so each gets their own share will be:
friend - can use rent a room for their share of the income/profit, but the RaR would be restricted to 50% of 7,500 since the property is jointly owned, so her tax free allowance would be 3,750.
the GF - cannot use RaR and must pay tax on income less her share of costs paid, ie her share of the net profit.

Depending on how much money is involved the nice and simple obvious solution is for the friend to take 100% of any rent and pay more of the mortgage using the Gf's "share" of the rent which has been made over to the friend. Friend thus gets all income under rent a room, gets the full 7,500 allowance, and the occupant is friend's lodger.

csgohan4

G_M wrote: »

My lodgers never shared my bed....

Not even with Tea and Cake?

sevenhills

melanzana wrote: »

Will HMRC or other checkers come out to visit and check?

Just wondered.

I am sure years ago people just got a lodger and nothing more was thought about it.

agrinnall

sevenhills wrote: »

I am sure years ago people just got a lodger and nothing more was thought about it.

Sure, but unless you have a time machine we're not living years ago, we're living now, and the rules in force now are what have to be followed. Reminiscing about what used to happen is a pointless exercise.

Alter_ego

No tax liability on OP

Except council tax of course.

sevenhills

Alter_ego wrote: »

Except council tax of course.

Only in certain circumstances; so if there is no council tax and no income tax consiquences, informing the authorities is just wasting their time and paper.
All this red tape that the Tories were meant to be scrapping, its pointless.

cashbackproblems

get an agreement so she has no claim to your property if things go wrong. why this is any concern of the hmrc i dont know, you have made it far too complicated and asking on mse you get do gooders who will offer the govt tax even when they dont ask for it

zagubov

cashbackproblems wrote: »

get an agreement so she has no claim to your property if things go wrong.

In previous threads people have pointed out that if your gf is paying rent towards your mortgage or repairs or improvements to the house she may have some claim over part of the property should there be a split.
If she pays rent towards living expenses, maybe not.

silvercar

csgohan4 wrote: »

Not even with Tea and Cake?

Cake makes too many crumbs!