What tenancy do we have as owners of our property?

Keep_pedalling

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82031535#Comment_82031535

If you home is currently owned as TiC, you have no will, and are not married or in a CP then one of you dying is going to be disastrous for the surviving partner. First off if you have more than £325k in assets then your estate is going to have to pay IHT. Even worse the surviving partner will not inherit the other share of the house, it will fall under intestacy laws meany it will go to children, it there are any, to parents if they are still alive, to siblings if there are any, to more distant relatives or if there is no qualifying relatives to the crown.

Baring all that in mind getting wills in place should to on the top of your to do list and putting LPAs in place should be up there as well.

The main reason to hold your home as TiC is to protect children’s inheritance should a surviving partner marry someone and fail to make a new will or make one in favour of the spouse. Do either of you have children to leave your estates to? If not then this is probably not worth doing.

If you do have children (or adopted children) then it is certainly worth considering TiC but that needs to be combined with a will that creates a immediate post death interest trust on your death which protects both the surviving partner and the children’s inheritance.

None of this helps with the tax burden on your death, for that you should seriously consider your marrital status. Marrying or forming a CP would totally avoid IHT and avoid CGT on an IPDI trust created by your will. If that is not something you both want to do then look at life insurance written in trust to cover any IHT liability.