Accountants for owners gifting property to family
You are thinking about giving a property, or a share of one, to your children or another family member. Perhaps it is a rental you no longer want to run, perhaps it is the family home and the point is keeping it out of a future inheritance tax bill. Either way the tax lands before any money moves, because a gift between connected people is treated as a disposal at market value even though nothing is paid. The review turns on the capital gains position on the gift, whether you keep any benefit afterwards, and whether a mortgage travels with it. Two numbers decide it: the cost of gifting now and the cost of doing nothing. The filing dates come with them.
What lands on your desk
What you are dealing with
Capital gains tax falls due even though no money changes hands
A transfer to a child or other connected person is a disposal at market value under TCGA 1992 s.17 and s.286. The gain is that value less what you paid and your allowable costs, and residential gains are taxed at 18% and 24% in 2026/27 after an annual exempt amount of £3,000. Only a spouse or civil partner transfer escapes it, and an ordinary buy to let has no holdover, so the tax is payable in cash. The CGT calculator sizes it.
Keeping any benefit undoes the inheritance tax saving
An outright gift to an individual leaves your estate if you survive seven years, with taper reducing the tax on gifts above the nil rate band from year three. But if you carry on living there, or keep a slice of the rent, FA 1986 s.102 makes it a gift with reservation and the property sits back in your estate at its death value. The reservation of benefit rules are where most family gifts fail.
The shared-occupation carve-out is narrower than it looks
There are three ways out. Pay a full open-market rent to the new owners, evidenced and reviewed. Move out entirely. Or use the FA 1986 s.102B(4) carve-out: gift an undivided share, both of you genuinely occupy the property as a home, and you take no benefit from the recipient connected with the gift. Only the third lets you stay rent free, and it fails if the recipient does not live there.
Stamp duty appears when a mortgage moves with the property
A gift of an unencumbered property carries no stamp duty, because the charge falls on what is paid. It appears when the recipient takes on the mortgage: FA 2003 Sch 4 para 8 treats the assumed debt as chargeable consideration at residential rates, capped at market value. Where the recipient already owns a home the 5% surcharge can apply. The deed of gift and SDLT position has the detail.
What a specialist reviews
What a specialist reviews
The cost of the gift, before you sign anything
A specialist from the partner network reviews your acquisition cost, improvement spend and any period the property was your main home, then sets the gain against a current valuation. You see the figure, the date it is payable, and how it moves if the gift is split across two tax years or two owners.
A reservation of benefit review before the deed is drawn
The review covers what actually happens after the gift: who lives there, who collects the rent, who pays the bills, and whether money comes back to you. That is measured against FA 1986 s.102, s.102A and s.102B and the pre-owned assets charge. Where you need to stay, your accountant prepares the rent calculation and its evidence.
The stamp duty position on any debt that travels
Where a mortgage or a share of one is taken over, a specialist calculates the chargeable consideration, checks whether the surcharge catches the recipient, and confirms whether a return is notifiable at all. That figure often decides whether the mortgage is redeemed first or moved. The stamp duty calculator gives a first pass.
Filings, records and the order of a larger handover
The 60-day capital gains return is prepared where tax arises, the disposal is reported again at self assessment, and the gift is recorded with its date and valuation so your executors can evidence the seven-year position. Where a portfolio is passing down, the order of the transfers is written down with dates.
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