Mark McLaughlin looks at the beneficial ownership of jointly-owned property where one of the owners purchases additional interests in the same property from another joint owner.
Establishing the legal owner of property is relatively straightforward, as details are generally available from the Land Registry (NB this article relates to a property in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, but not Scotland).
What’s the difference?
For tax purposes, it may be necessary to consider not only the legal ownership of property but beneficial ownership; the property owners will not necessarily be identical. The distinction can be important. For example, the capital gains tax (CGT) and inheritance tax (IHT) regimes are generally concerned with property to which a person is ‘beneficially entitled’, and not necessarily with legal ownership.
Unfortunately, no
