>>>If the spouse subsequently dies s/he has only one IHT allowance to use (currently £325k).
I thought if the second person dies they automatically pick up the 325k of the first person so the second person's ITax allowance is £650,000.
My father dies about 10 years ago and used none of his IT allowance.
My mother is still alive but lives in a house worth about £600,000 and I understood there would be no ITax on any of that as my mother and father;s IT allowance would be added together.
See "increased threshold" on the top of this page here
http://www.hmrc.gov.u...etax/intro/basics.htm