Is there an IHT downside to selling a home if parent has moved into a care home?

campalumpa

My dad has just moved into a care home. His wife has already died and he inherited her share of their house. He has a house worth £600k and some savings of £150k. 

He doesn’t need to sell his home immediately to pay the care home fees as this can come out of his pensions but may as well as he won’t be going back to his home

As I understand, on his death, there will be his NRB plus my deceased mum’s NRB plus also two lots of RNRB

So I think no IHT should be payable as there should be £1m of IHT ‘space’ available but not sure if his savings go in the NRB pot and his house in the RNRB pot so question 1 is would we would have to pay IHT above £350k on his house sale? 

Question 2 - from an IHT perspective, is there a downside to selling his home before he dies? I have read the rules on downsizing but cannot make sense of them.  

Thanks in advance 

Keep_pedalling

There will be no IHT to pay on his estate whether you sell now or not. The residential NRBs are protected by the downsizing rule so can still be claimed if his estate is above £650K if he dies before care costs reduce it to below that level. 

It would therefore be better to sell now rather than have to maintain an empty property. 

lisyloo

If you keep the property you’ll have to pay 
probably extra council tax (depends on local authority)
high insurance costs if no-one if living there (visits don’t count)
maintenance including garden

campalumpa

lisyloo said:

If you keep the property you’ll have to pay 
probably extra council tax (depends on local authority)
high insurance costs if no-one if living there (visits don’t count)
maintenance including garden

lisyloo said:

If you keep the property you’ll have to pay 
probably extra council tax (depends on local authority)
high insurance costs if no-one if living there (visits don’t count)
maintenance 

Thanks - helpfully his local council has cancelled his council tax but I do need to sort out insurance

Mands

Question 2 - from an IHT perspective, is there a downside to selling his home before he dies? I have read the rules on downsizing but cannot make sense of them.  

Does he have capacity to agree to the sale or does someone have PoA?