hello all, sorry if ithas been covered before- home owners can be relieved from having to pay capital gains tax on disposing of their own property. What is the situation, if a person isn't the legal owner, but the home was bought on their behalf for them to live in, even with their money, and they did live there as their only home & would otherwise qualify? So their name is not on the deeds, although it was always intended as held in trust. Further questions: If there is CGT liability could it be reduced eg. by transferring the property to the intended owner in carefully chosen fractions over a number of years, to take advantage of yearly allowances and possibly lower rates? would a 'beneficial' owner ( a beneficiary of a trust but not the legal owner) qualify for the relief in the same way as a legal owner? comments much appreciated!
CGT & exemption for home 'owners'
Aug 24, 2004
1 Replies
In principle it makes no difference who the legal owner is. Beneficial ownership is the deciding factor, and provided there is adequate evidence to support who that is, there should be no problem.
Clearly if the sale proceeds were to find their way into the pockets of the paper owner, that would be a Bad Thing. Also, since you say the money originally used to buy the property really belonged to the beneficial owner (and there is evidence of this, despite the paper owner being a different person), that would be a Good Thing.
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