If you are considering selling an investment property, its possible to gift the property from your sole ownership into joint ownership with your spouse. Transfers between spouses are exempt from Capital Gains Tax and so there is no CGT on the transfer. You can then make use of your spouses Capital Gains Tax exemption of £8,800 as well as their lower rate tax band. In more extreme cases its possible to save over £10,000 in tax from this strategy.

However, you just need to be aware that if the property is mortgaged, that on the transfer to your spouse the share of the mortgage effectively taken over by your spouse is considered to be consideration to which stamp duty applies and if this is above £125,000, SDLT would be due.

NEXT STEP:
Please contact us if you have any queries on this news release or ask a question.