To wonder why there isn’t public outrage about this?

[Blusterylimp]

If a couple isn’t married but own their property between them, the surviving one will need to pay inheritance tax on their partners half of the house (and other assets) if they die.
Effectively they will lose their home to pay the IHT unless they also have huge savings.
How can that be allowed in this day and age when so many couples cohabit without getting married?

I'm sorry but you are mistaken. @Slidingdoors99 is correct.

There is no IHT on the death of the first spouse (if everything is left to the surviving spouse). That is perhaps what you are thinking of?

Where joint owners of a property are not married then the person who dies just has a tax free allowance of £325k.

Yes, well, as I can attest, even if you do go to a solicitor to draw up a will and use a conveyancer to sell your dead mother's home, you may not be made fully aware of IHT rules.

I agree that it's ridiculously unfair and archaic. I'm married and we're both on the deeds but that was because we wanted to. I don't think it's right that people feel they have to marry purely for financial reasons (I know some that have).

OP if what you're proposing happened and you could pass the house tax free to the co-owner, then everyone would just put their kids names on the deeds of their house to avoid IHT. It's totally unworkable.

Just get married or accept that you don't get the legal protections of being married.

I suspect many more can't divorce for financial reasons, but they'll win out in the end (as long as they are the last one standing).

Been happily unmarried for years , owned joint property , mortgage now paid off , both have good pensions , share finances etc .
However having to marry because of the inheritance tax now for unmarried / non relative persons being included in iht being brought in 2027 .

With a falling birth rate, would this not be a better idea?
Maybe Japan is watching...

Yes, 500k. From EACH parent. So 1m in the end.

No one is forcing you to get married - you're doing so because it now benefits you.

OP, you yourself said than when you bought the house, you would have been under IHT threshold. So you would have contributed £300k to the value of the house, or thereabouts?

If the house is now worth £1.6mil, and you can't afford IHT, you will be pocketing £1.4mil, so over 4x your initial investment. You are gaining over a million just through sheer luck of house value going up.

Please save your tears.

How much more savings do you have than your partner? You can calculate what IHT would be if you were unmarried vs how much of a claim he'd have if you were to get divorced if you're that concerned about your wealth.

The thing that is unfair are people like siblings who share a house but then have to pay inheritance tax. There was a case a few years ago when elderly sisters challenged this.

No, your kids don't get penalised. Their father also has a tax free allowance when he passes away as well.

But the father can also leave up to £500k as well. That is how you get to the £1 million.

I’ve never had a romantic view of marriage but, after both studying family law as part of our degrees, DH and I both agreed that marriage is sensible for many reasons, particularly as we intended to have children. As it were we ended up rushing it through when I was pregnant because I wanted DH to have PR from birth should anything happen to me while having my cesarean.

I don’t think at all that it is an outdated concept, it is a couple agreeing to be legally bound to each other, I totally understand why some might not (debts, other children and their inheritance etc) but you can’t choose to keep yourself legally separate in life and then complain that you should be classed as joint when one dies, makes zero sense, courts would be absolutely flooded with claims.

Their father who moved abroad and has never paid maintenance? Yeah that's not an option for his kids to benefit from.
I was the financially safe one (why I didn't marry).

I expect there's a law against siblings getting married, not sure about a civil partnership but would there anything to stop two cousins, friends etc doing this to reduce their IHT liability?

It depends how the property is owned. If it is owned as joint tenants then the property will go to the surviving owner regardless of any will or intestacy.

And some kids have married parents who never accumulate any wealth. It's the luck of the draw. They have the potential to theoretically inherit the same as anyone else.

upon the second partners death they receive the unused proportion of used iht against their estate. Should an unmarried couple get to carry over the iht allowance; of course not.
which means the house actually becomes subject to more iht in total.

so your solution to passing it without iht tax outside of marriage will actually be worse in the long run.

This is absolutely not true. Inheritance tax is due on a share of a jointly owned home unless you are married. Please don’t spread dangerous misinformation.

I'm sorry but it doesn't work like that.

If they own the property as joint tenants then the house goes to the surviving partner regardless of any will or intestacy. The same with any joint bank accounts.

It's only if they own the property as tenants in common can a share of the property be left to another person.

Even then, if the deceased's estate is above the limit then IHT will be payable regardless of the type of ownership

I suspect there is not public outrage as it is not on most peoples radar either because they have not realised that if unmarried IHT will apply if outside the exempt band or it has already been pointed out to them that if they marry they can circumvent this rule. HMRC actually rarely force a sale and have discretion to apply a 10-15% discount and set up a payment plan over 10 years for any IHT due. If you do not want to get married I suggest you seek legal advice from an IHT specialist.

I agree. She also seems to forget that those children also have a father. And the father can also leave them up to £500k as well.

The difference between kids having to sell the family home or being able to inherit 1m apparently hinges on whether you're "lucky" enough to be in a weaker position to marry, as a woman.

So get married then. Where would you draw the line? Together a week, a month, a year? How would you prove it?