Adding Wife To Deeds Of Second Property

[stevo5]

Hi, To minimise my CCT i would like to add my wife to the deeds of a house i own 50/50 with another family member. Is this something i can organise myself ? or would a Solicitor have to be involved........Thanks.

[buildersmate]

It is certainly possible to do it without using a licensed conveyancer (far cheaper than a solicitor any old day) if you are comfortable working your way around the Land Registry forms. There's some guidance on what you need to do here:
http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/faqs/how-do-i-transfer-my-registered-landproperty
and you will need to complete forms TR1, AP1 and ID1 for the identity of your wife. It will cost about £100 in LR fees, I think.

However have you thought this fully through? You'd better check with HMRC first that this doesn't trigger a Stamp Duty Land Tax payment, because I suspect this counts as a land transaction - two people are essentially 'transacting' 1/6th of their 50% stake each to the third person. Not sure that you can do this for a nominal sum of say £1.

Nor am I sure that you'd want to. It's going to screw up the way the capital gain has to be shown when you eventually sell the property.

To be honest, the use of the conveyancer is the easy bit of your question - I think you need proper tax advice before attempting this.

[stevo5]

Thanks for your reply. Have contacted land Registry and they say ok to fill out the forms you mentioned. Just need to transfer half of my 50% ownership to my wife (25%) i presume !