Buying a house for offspring

I read in the paper about a 'Help Your Child to Buy' scheme provided by Share a Mortgage. It gives options to lend, gift or jointly own a property with a family member with structure to help invest from your asset to help children to buy.

In 2001 I gifted my son his deposit on his home and this helped me with my tax planning for the inevitable. What a way to finish a post. Sorry.,

Purchase house in your name and rent out to son on a nominal rental.

Get things tied down .Very, very wise move Sula .!!

Again, make a will putting the money in a discretionary trust. I think that might work.

I had been advised to have a Deed of Trust, but then another solicitor said that that would be considered to be a 'Resource' (??) when the finances were sorted out. I couldn't quite make out if this only applied if Spousal Maintenance was being paid, which it isn't.

Neither partner is a high earner, both are renting, son is paying Child Maintenance and sees his son on a regular basis.

Apparently a bigger problem would be if I were to die before they divorce. All the money that my son inherited would be halved between. Need to get them to get divorced PDQ!!!

Going to see a solicitor next week!

Yes. You are right bluebell. That is when you rent out a room in your own home. The original poster would have to let son live in the house rent free until after any divorce.

Sorry for getting facts wrong.

Oops J0 - I think you are muddling renting a house/flat out with the rent-a-room scheme! As some wise people above say, hot foot it to a solicitor!

I would suggest you buy a house but keep it in your name for now. He could even pay you a small rent. (£350 a month is the max if you want to avoid paying income tax on it)

This is a complex area, especially when inheritance, income tax etc. is involved. Find a specialist tax and property solicitor. We had great advice from the one we consulted, who advised us on situations that we had not thought of. Result was, a Deed of Trust document. Every situation is different.

Hope this helps. X

Speak to a solicitor but I think the solution is to put it into a trust so that while he has use of it he does not own it.

Alternatively you could buy the house in your name and rent it out to him. You could get a buy to let mortgage and he could make the payments on it. I bought a flat and got a mortgage for it as my son was a student and would have had difficulty getting a mortgage. He then paid the mortgage and all the running costs. The downside of this is that when I sold it I had to pay capital gains tax.

Whatever you do it will involve a solicitor so I should go and talk to one. What you want to do is quite possible, providing you make sure it is all tied up correctly legally.

I have no idea! I think you really need a solicitor to answer that. I assume the existing family house will have to be sold as being joint property.

I suspect it might be safest to get a full and final financial divorce settlement before he starts to own any other major assets. I don't know what would happen if you bought and then let it to him as a rented property. That might work to keep it out of the ex's hands.