Hi all,
Had a search but didn't find something covering our exact circumstances.
My father passed away (intestate) in Jan 2008. He left his wife (my mam) and my brother and I.
My mother extracted the grant etc. and has been acting as his personal representative since then as we had a court case to fight a and it was advised to wait until that was sorted before divvying up the property.
It's now coming round to time to start work on this and my mam is looking for ways to pass on as much as possible to us without the taxman getting his hands on any of it (legally, of course).
The estate comprises a dwelling house (land registry), where my mother and brother live and have lived for years and some mixed use property (1 derelict dwelling house and 3 commercial units, all on the same plot of land and all considered one legal entity in the registry of deeds),
Mam is happy to gift us the property while she is still alive etc. and knows the risks of this from her side. We have some questions (we'll have to get all this done through our solicitor/tax advisor anyway, but we want to educate ourselves in advance so we know what options are open to us).
The main question is, can my mam simply disclaim the entire commercial property aspect whilst still inheriting her 2/3 of the house she and my brother live in or does she have to discalim the whole lot? (main reason is that the thresholds have been cut drastically since my dad died-if we inherited from him we'd have thresholds of €521,208 each, if we inherit from mam now or later, it's 250k which could trigger CAT in our cases.)
My brother doesn't have anywhere else to live and I am doing ok, so I would be happy with him ultimately inheriting the house they both live in, ie, I'd be happy to disclaim my 1/6 share of that house. I was reading CAT10 from Revenue and it seems to suggest that my brother could inherit the entire house with no CAT liability (from my mother!), as my mother is over 65 and he helps her round the house. BUT it states that in order for this to happen, he must NOT have any beneficial interest in any dwelling house. Would this include the 1/6 beneficial interest (from dad) in the house he would inherit itself? ie, would he also need to disclaim his 1/6 of the house from dad and let mam inherit the house in full and leave it to him in full in her will?
Assuming this is possible, could mam also gift it to him before she dies (hopefully not for a long while yet, touch wood!) and have some covenant drawn up that would guarantee her the right to reside there indefinitely? (we want to reduce the amount of things we have to do when mam ultimately does pass away, assuming she goes before us, as we found the whole thing horrible to deal with after my father's death and we'd like as much "done and dusted" in advance. Dealing with this stuff in the wake of my mam's death will be very difficult again and we want to minimise it)
It's complicated and we will definitely not proceed with professional tax and legal advice but your thoughts are really welcome
Had a search but didn't find something covering our exact circumstances.
My father passed away (intestate) in Jan 2008. He left his wife (my mam) and my brother and I.
My mother extracted the grant etc. and has been acting as his personal representative since then as we had a court case to fight a and it was advised to wait until that was sorted before divvying up the property.
It's now coming round to time to start work on this and my mam is looking for ways to pass on as much as possible to us without the taxman getting his hands on any of it (legally, of course).
The estate comprises a dwelling house (land registry), where my mother and brother live and have lived for years and some mixed use property (1 derelict dwelling house and 3 commercial units, all on the same plot of land and all considered one legal entity in the registry of deeds),
Mam is happy to gift us the property while she is still alive etc. and knows the risks of this from her side. We have some questions (we'll have to get all this done through our solicitor/tax advisor anyway, but we want to educate ourselves in advance so we know what options are open to us).
The main question is, can my mam simply disclaim the entire commercial property aspect whilst still inheriting her 2/3 of the house she and my brother live in or does she have to discalim the whole lot? (main reason is that the thresholds have been cut drastically since my dad died-if we inherited from him we'd have thresholds of €521,208 each, if we inherit from mam now or later, it's 250k which could trigger CAT in our cases.)
My brother doesn't have anywhere else to live and I am doing ok, so I would be happy with him ultimately inheriting the house they both live in, ie, I'd be happy to disclaim my 1/6 share of that house. I was reading CAT10 from Revenue and it seems to suggest that my brother could inherit the entire house with no CAT liability (from my mother!), as my mother is over 65 and he helps her round the house. BUT it states that in order for this to happen, he must NOT have any beneficial interest in any dwelling house. Would this include the 1/6 beneficial interest (from dad) in the house he would inherit itself? ie, would he also need to disclaim his 1/6 of the house from dad and let mam inherit the house in full and leave it to him in full in her will?
Assuming this is possible, could mam also gift it to him before she dies (hopefully not for a long while yet, touch wood!) and have some covenant drawn up that would guarantee her the right to reside there indefinitely? (we want to reduce the amount of things we have to do when mam ultimately does pass away, assuming she goes before us, as we found the whole thing horrible to deal with after my father's death and we'd like as much "done and dusted" in advance. Dealing with this stuff in the wake of my mam's death will be very difficult again and we want to minimise it)
It's complicated and we will definitely not proceed with professional tax and legal advice but your thoughts are really welcome