Mum wants to gift her house to me

Keep_pedalling

Based on the info the OP has given, this whole proposal does nothing to benefit the OP or their mother, all it does is horribly complicate things. It won’t avoid care costs, it potentially leads to more tax being paid by the OP and it threatens the long term security of the OPs mother. 

The only person who benefits is the solicitor who gets the fees. 

If the OP has any sense they should simply refuse to go along with this they can’t be forced to take ownership of property. If their mother want to help them financial then gifting some of her other assets would be a far better option.

Malthusian

njkmr said:

Ok looking at it from another angle. 
This forum is full of people telling us how much they pay into their pensions to avoid paying a higher tax rate so they can keep more for themselves. Also the fact that this skimming off of their earnings then attracts a nice slice of top up from the government for being so well off and smart..? By  government , I mean other tax payers like most of us that is.

Pension tax relief isn't a "top up", it is tax deferral. Instead of paying tax when you earn the money, you pay tax when you take it out of the pension instead. In return for making your own private pension provision, you get the possibility of paying a lower rate of tax when you eventually take it out, if you play your cards right and the Government doesn't change the rules too much in the intervening decades.

(There are edge cases like non-taxpayers being able to put £2,880 in a pension and get £720 tax relief despite not being tax, but those are trivial amounts and the point is to save HMRC pursuing people over fiddling small change.)

Pension tax relief means keeping more of your own earnings. Trying to dump your parents in Overmydeadbody Grove at the taxpayer's expense, even though they can afford their own living costs, means getting other people to spend their earnings on their care so you can keep more of your parents' earnings.