Transferring your share of property income to your spouse or civil partner

There is an unfounded belief that couples are taxed on rental income received based on their percentage holding of the property.

So even if a couple’s holding of the property is uneven say 70/30, the default split is to be taxed 50/50 regardless.

An election needs to be made to HMRC to change the split to the beneficial ownership, ie 70/30. You cannot elect to alter anything that is not actual.

There is a time limit on this election where you can only back date it 60 days.

So our advice would be to review this straight away if you have a holding of anything other than 50/50.

To make any change to the beneficial ownership you could make a special agreement to transfer/gift this to your spouse or civil partner where specialist advice should be sought.

If you would like to know more, then please do get in touch directly and we will try to help.