OT - house inheritance

[bert]

Catch 22 Value the property highly and you up the IHT. Value at a lower level and you ultimately up any CGT However IHT is a lot higher than CGT but there is an initial tax free allowance for IHT whereas there is an annual allowance for CGT. So good luck trying to work out which is best. All you have to do now is factor in how long you might keep the house and what it's likely value will be in "n" years time - and how long both of you might live, assuming you are still together in a legal sense at that point in time. Simples as they say.

[tim.....]

I was deliberately very careful in my choice of words

IHT is not paid by the recipient of the inheritance, it is paid by the estate before it is distributed. So if paying it necessitated the sale of the house no-one would "receive" the house as their inheritance, in the first place.

tim

[tim.....]

Actually it won't, because that's exactly how they expect you to split it.

tim

[John Rumm]

Yes while this is technically true, it does miss the rather bigger picture that it does not stop the original owner intending to leave their house to x, writing their will with the intention of their house going to x, and x living with the expectation of receiving the house upon their death. It can obviously be a bit of a shock for x to find that when push comes to shove, that can't happen in the way expected. Especially when x is already living there and calls it home.

(not applicable in the OPs case obviously)