Buying share of partner's property

Wildman10

Please can you help with advice on buying a share of a live-in partner's property?

I've searched for some time to find the answers to what I thought would be a common issue but to no avail.  FWIW I'm a finance professional and hate paying and distrust lawyers.

England.  Some 12 years ago I moved into my partner's house after buying out her then husband but, for what seemed good reasons at the time, the title was listed at the Land Registry in her name only and I had no formal claim on the property. We now want to formalise the arrangement.

We agree that my interest should be 40% of a property that (finger in the air) Zoopla values at around £600k based on my buying out was 20% of the property value at the time and a further 20% for my paying the lion's share of our joint expenditure since, including house improvements. I will, of course, ensure that her relatives see my workings and are happy with this figure.

I believe that Tenants In Common (TIC) is preferable to Joint. I am comfortable with using online services to get a proper TIC agreement and rewrite our wills accordingly.

My main issue is with the Land Registry and SDLT. I could either find nothing or was confused or unhappy with what I found.  So:
1.  What forms am I likely to need from the Land Registry and can I just ring them, hold for hours to speak to someone then get them sent to me?
2.  My 40% is, say, £240k, just below the England SDLT threshold of £250k and I want get everything done before it falls to £125k on 01 April. 
a. Am I right in interpreting the rules as saying that SDLT is calculated as the value transferred irrespective of no money changing hands?
b.  Do I really need to get 3 estate agents to value the house and take the average?  If so, is there a good way to do this (I'd prefer to be honest and not pretend that we're thinking of selling).
c.  If we later want to increase my share or go to Joint Tenants what would be the implications for SDLT (eg  increasing my proportion within x years might see the 2 sale values added together)?
d.  Will getting married make any difference to this?
e.  Are there any gotchas to be aware of?

Bookworm105

1.  @Land_registry can explain it here again no doubt. You will need a declaration/deed of trust (signed & witnessed) to formally document the share split.

you MUST be TIC , you cannot be JT given your ownership is not 50/50

2.
a) correct, SDLT is based on the chargeable consideration which in your case appears to be £240k cash

b) There must be some basis for your value. No actual requirement to get EA valuations if you think you can source equally valid evidence. If you do get EA, be fair to them and let them know you are not selling and they will not get commission - likely they will then charge a (modest) fee for obvious reasons. Or you could just pay one to give a professional valuation (best to make sure they are a chartered surveyor who holds the valuation qualification as  they will be trained and experienced in arguing with HMRC over values)

c) do you mean SDLT? same principle - amount of chargeable consideration versus threshold

d) research this yourself, here is a starter:  SDLT Implications for Married Couples and Co-habitees

Land_Registry

Wildman10 said:

Please can you help with advice on buying a share of a live-in partner's property?

I've searched for some time to find the answers to what I thought would be a common issue but to no avail.  FWIW I'm a finance professional and hate paying and distrust lawyers.

England.  Some 12 years ago I moved into my partner's house after buying out her then husband but, for what seemed good reasons at the time, the title was listed at the Land Registry in her name only and I had no formal claim on the property. We now want to formalise the arrangement.

We agree that my interest should be 40% of a property that (finger in the air) Zoopla values at around £600k based on my buying out was 20% of the property value at the time and a further 20% for my paying the lion's share of our joint expenditure since, including house improvements. I will, of course, ensure that her relatives see my workings and are happy with this figure.

I believe that Tenants In Common (TIC) is preferable to Joint. I am comfortable with using online services to get a proper TIC agreement and rewrite our wills accordingly.

My main issue is with the Land Registry and SDLT. I could either find nothing or was confused or unhappy with what I found.  So:
1.  What forms am I likely to need from the Land Registry and can I just ring them, hold for hours to speak to someone then get them sent to me?
2.  My 40% is, say, £240k, just below the England SDLT threshold of £250k and I want get everything done before it falls to £125k on 01 April. 
a. Am I right in interpreting the rules as saying that SDLT is calculated as the value transferred irrespective of no money changing hands?
b.  Do I really need to get 3 estate agents to value the house and take the average?  If so, is there a good way to do this (I'd prefer to be honest and not pretend that we're thinking of selling).
c.  If we later want to increase my share or go to Joint Tenants what would be the implications for SDLT (eg  increasing my proportion within x years might see the 2 sale values added together)?
d.  Will getting married make any difference to this?
e.  Are there any gotchas to be aware of?

A TIC agreement/arrangement and/or wills won't directly involve HMLR. However once you have decided on what the two of you are going to do to protect your 'beneficial interest' you may decide that updating the land register is something you wish to do 
IF you decide you want to transfer the actual legal ownership from a single name to joint then you don't need to ring us - see Registering land or property with HM Land Registry: Change the registered owner name - GOV.UK
IF you do become a joint legal owner then also see - Joint property ownership: Overview - GOV.UK
Any SDLT Qs should be directed at others and HMRC and I guess so would whether things change on marriage

Wildman10

Thank you, both.   Your advice is very useful and gives me confidence.

The first estate agent that I popped in to what happy to do a valuation despite my saying that we had no intention of moving, at least in the next few years.