Property transfer to wifes name

[bgroves88]

Hi, I've been reading through the forums and have seen similar questions mainly regarding CGT, but this question isn't mainly focused on CGT, apologies if this has been answered before, i just couldn't seem to find the answer directly related to what i would like to know.

So here's the story from the beginning, i bought a house before i met my wife, and let it out. i then met my now wife and after a few years of being together we asked the tenant to move out and we moved in and lived there for 18 months/ 2years. we then moved out of my property and bought a bigger house, had kids, then got married, keeping the other property as solely owned by me. the tenants pay the rent to me (£800 per month), and i pay the mortgage on it, i am a 40% tax rate payer, my wife earns nothing. i read recently about the tax changes and from April 2016 we can no longer offset the mortgage interest from the profit made on second properties. So i am considering what to do as it will cost me more and more going forward and i think we should take advantage of my wife's 11k unused tax allowance.

so from what i've read, i think i can put 99% of the property into my wifes name and let her be paid the rent and show that as her income (therefore not paying any tax as it falls under 11k a year), if i want to do this who should i contact? and how will that effect CGT going forward?

only thing im wondering is (not that im planning on getting divorced anytime soon/at all), as this is a non-martial asset, if i left it as it is (with me the sole owner) and got divorced would it be mine or would it be split? and if i transferred 99% of it to her name, would it be mine or would it be 99% hers?

Thanks for your time guys!

[theartfullodger]

https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/...rital-martial/

But at least you've agreed not to fight over the asset..,,,

[jpkeates]

You possibly need an accountant to work through the options.

You don't need to transfer to transfer the property to your wife, you need the property to be owned by both of you as tenants in common and then you use a deed of trust to change the proportion of ownership for tax purposes.
This is something that a solicitor would do for you quite routinely.

You want to make sure that you don't lost any PPR/letting relief for the time you were living there.

Tax follows beneficial ownership not title, so if your wife was helping you pay for the property while you were living there, she may be entitled to PPR.