Inheritance

[Peppette]

My husband and I are trying to work out a financial agreement to separate, and if course everything will be run by our individual solicitors once we've come to agreement.

Our totally assets are £567,500 so half of our assets would mean £283,750 each. His would be tied up in the house we live in while I would take mostly cash to set up somewhere new.

The thing is £280,000 of that total assets is from selling my husband's mother's home which he inherited two years ago, and will be sold this coming month. My husband has basically said I am punishing him because both his parents are dead and that if I ask for half of this inheritance, he will hold on to resentment and that means things will be less amicable and he has mentioned getting court involved which I would prefer to avoid purely because of the apparently spiralling costs whenever that happens. Legally I'm not sure how much of this I am entitled to (on paper I own 99% due to tax reasons, which also means I no longer qualify as a first time buyer), the rent that we have been charging for the past year has gone into the joint bank account/family finances and has been put towards the mortgage on the family home, so insight into that would be nice.

My main question is morally though, should I go after 50% of everything, specifically the inheritance? I feel like I am the mother of his mother's grandchildren, she gave the inheritance to the family unit, I helped clear out the house, paid £5,000 for it to be rewired from my personal account at the drop of a hat and if I wasn't there helping clear out the house, I was watching the children so that my husband could do it unhindered (for sometimes days at a time). Not to mention all the help or children watching I did while she was sick nearer the end or when she needed help with some other things before that.

For reference my husband is a much, much higher earner than me, I took time off work to watch the kids so lost earning potential there, he is the one who has initiated the separation and is depressed (I would say severely as it has seriously clouded his interpretation of things I do /say to the point where it's so twisted that he is using some things that have never happened as basis for the divorce and is telling mutual friends these twisted versions too).

The house is in your name not his, the conveyancing solicitor legally will pay the money on sale to whoever own the house so that will go into your account.

Remind him of this before you negotiate and don't believe anything he says to you now to get this settled as unless you have it worded very precisely he will backtrack and you'll find yourself having to compromise on your lifestyle and that or your children before too long.

He was clearly trying to prey on my emotions here and it's not the first time so I just can't trust him at his word.

Glad you are now able to see this clearly @Peppette I hope your conversation with the solicitor goes well.

It has been rented for less that a year so the rental income needs to be declared on 23/24 and 24/25 tax return. I am currently gathering the documents needed to do my tax return for the 23/24 year and plan to do it when the kids go back to school in September and I have a bit more free time. If there is tax to pay he will be paying for it.

The solicitor who is selling the house has advised that there will be no CGT to pay as it is worth less now that when we inherited it. Although there is an accountant firm we use at work who will be happy to double check all this for me.

I have also contacted the solicitor and changed the bank account that the proceeds of sale will be paid into.

His depression is "handled" with antidepressants and a therapist, although I do believe he is very convincing when talking to his therapist and then of course the therapist "backs him up" on things like I'm emotionally abusing him and I have OCD etc which is definitely not true but with a professional "agreeing" with him it gives him more ammo to come at me with. I have had my own assessment by a separate therapist on these matters as proof that it's not true in case it's needed down the road.

I think you need to declare the sale to HMRC within 60 days, even if no CGT is due. You will in an onoine form that calculates the tax due for you. If you don’t do it you get fined.

There may be some questions as you are selling it to a relative and not on the open market, for a price that it less than it was valued at two years ago.

As the property is 99% in your name, it’s YOU who is liable for any tax in this, it doesn’t matter than you are letting your husband do all these things ( that may be dodgy ) in your name. So please make sure you are not going to get into trouble with HMRC.

Tax problems can come back to haunt you in a big way and HMRC will chase you down for decades, plus interest and penalties . So yes YOU need to check with an accountant. Not one who works for your husband.