Deed of gift when one joint owner is deceased

skayes

Hi, my father wants to gift his house to myself and brother, and we are planning to go ahead without a solicitor. An issue that has cropped up is that the house was originally in joint ownership of my parents, but my mother is deceased since 2019, and we never got round to sending the Land Registry her death certificate in order to update it.

Just to save time and money I was wondering if, instead of first going through the process of sending the DJP form, and then applying for the transfer to us, there was another form to simply change the names over in one go? Any help will be apprciated.

getmore4less

What does your father hope to achieve by doing this.

In most cases it causes more problems than it solves.

wilfred30

If you and/or your father are under the impression that by doing that you can avoid paying potential care home fees, I'm afraid you're going to be sadly disappointed.

This is because, should the need arise, the local authority will do a financial assessment and look very closely at the potential for deliberate deprivation of assets.

skayes

This has nothing to do with avoiding care home fees. He is getting married and he wants to gift us the house before he moves to live with her.

Keep_pedalling

Assuming this is his home it would be a foolish move on his part, no one should give their long time security like this. Does he really want to risk having his home form part of divorce settlement or a bankruptcy? 

If he thinks this will save IHT he is wrong (Google gift with reservation) If he thinks this will avoid care costs check out deprivation of assets. I can’t think of any other reasons why someone would want to do this and I would be very surprised if you could tell us one especially as you are avoiding legal advice.

The other consideration is CGT which is likely to come into effect when the house is eventually sold.

A better option would have been for your father to do a deed of variation to pass his wife’s share to you, but with him maintaining a life time interest. As well as protecting your mothers inheritance, it would also have protected his security and avoided the CGT issue. Unfortunately it is too late for that now as would needed to have be done within 2 years of her death.

skayes

Thanks to you all for your thoughts, and in particular Keep_pedalling for your advice. We decided not to use a solicitor because we had already looked into it in-depth ourselves and had a fair idea of the issues you've raised. 

He wants to gift the house because he and his wife-to-be are planning to live abroad in her home there. I was aware of all the implications you have mentioned except the last, about the deed of variation and the two-year deadline. So, I will now look into that. He would like to gift the house primarily because of the move and he thought this was the simple thing to do since I live in the house, but we'll go with other options if they are more suitable.

Keep_pedalling

skayes said:

Thanks to you all for your thoughts, and in particular Keep_pedalling for your advice. We decided not to use a solicitor because we had already looked into it in-depth ourselves and had a fair idea of the issues you've raised. 

He wants to gift the house because he and his wife-to-be are planning to live abroad in her home there. I was aware of all the implications you have mentioned except the last, about the deed of variation and the two-year deadline. So, I will now look into that. He would like to gift the house primarily because of the move and he thought this was the simple thing to do since I live in the house, but we'll go with other options if they are more suitable.

Thanks for the clarification. The fact that it is also your home takes away your risk of CG but not your sibling’s. As we don’t know all the details round this I do think your father should take some professional advice on the best way to handle his UK assets when he becomes an expat, and he also needs to make a new will as he is about to marry. In fact he will probably need 2 wills if he will still have some UK assets, one for here and another for his new country of abode.

skayes

Yes, I think you might be right. We should probably reconsider the solicitor given the complications of our living situation. It happens he was thinking about his will too - I'll let him know about the need for a separate will in each country - so all the more reason to go the official route. Thank you once again!