Joint Tenants or Tenants in commin

Albermarle

Keep_pedalling said:

p00hsticks said:

I'm not an expert but I don't believe there are any IHT benefits and there may be negatives; the half share of the house is very close to the current IHT allowance. AS I understand it (others please correct me if I am wrong); anything left to a spouse is an excepted estate with no IHT to pay, but there could be inheritance tax to pay on the first death if more than the IHT allowance is left elsewhere. 

However, the combination of owning a house as tenants in common and having a will gives you options you don't have if the house is held as joint tenants, as ownership of the property will be determined by the will. 

There are no negatives as far as IHT is concerned with a will that gives a spouse a life interest via an immediate post death interest trust. The bequest is still covered by spousal exemption. It is beneficial as far as CGT is concerned, and if the ultimate beneficiaries (remaindermen) do not already own their own home it avoids them having to pay additional tax on their first homes. 

As the OP is deep in IHT territory they might like to think about gifting some of the £950k in savings now.

From their comments, the OP seems to think there could be some IHT advantage, but not as far as I am aware.

badmemory

I would have thought that the biggest financial issue could be if one need to go into a care home leaving one at home.  If the savings are all in that persons name & even if there is a power of attorney in place the remaining one could be in financial difficulties.

RAS

The assumption is that the home cannot be sold whilst the one at home is home, and joint accounts are divided equally when assessments are made.

The bigger problem is that in the absence of a POA, the bank might freeze the joint account until the POA or deputyship is sorted.