Tenants in common vs joint tenants?

[AnnaBegins]

DH and I are about to move house. We are married and have 1 DS and another on the way. Should we choose to own our next house as joint tenants or tenants in common?

Seems like the advantages of joint tenants are that we'd automatically have equal shares and it would pass in full to the other if one of us dies.

But the advantages of tenants in common seem to be that we could leave each of our halves to the kids to avoid inheritance tax and higher care home fees if needed.

DH is not willing to discuss as he thinks joint tenants is the "normal" way so any advice appreciated!

Are your assets (plus new house) within the IHT threshold?

You can't necessarily avoid care home fees. Councils are VERY good at getting their money back.

I agree with your DH in that joint tenants tends to be the norm for married couples unless IHT planning. It doesn't mean you have to though.

Our assets would be over the iht threshold but not double yet, so that's what I was thinking could help.

Tenants in common is often used by married couples if they have children with previous spouses/ partners to protect the interests of the children if the bio parent died to stop the step parent favouring their own children. Unusual to consider it if both children are yours and DH.

I suggest you make an appointment with a wills and probate solicitor to talk through the IHT. They should be able to tell you whether or not it's worth it.

We’ve just changed ours to tennants in common so if something happens to one of us half of the property automatically falls to our daughter. It’s quite complicated how it works but it basically protects that half of the property so worst case secario she will inherit that and the council can only get its dirty little hands on half rather than all of it 😡. We did this while making our wills as advised by our solicitor. It would be safest option if you haven’t done so already to make a will.

@Mummytowooter how much did it cost to write your wills and change to tenants in common. I think we need to do the same thank you.

It cost us £575 to do it all in one go. That was for two wills and the change to tenants in common. It was a lot less painful than we expected it to be thankfully

We're just buying and have ours as tenants in common. We have each left our half of the property to our children but with a lifetime interest to remaining spouse. So if I die DH won't have to leave the house or if he sells up the DC's will own part of his next property- they won't inherit my half till he dies (unless he gives it to them). We wanted to make sure that our DC's would def not end up disinherited in the case of future parental marriages.

Our first house we bought as joint tenants but we weren't married and didn't have children so that was the best way for us then.

@Mummytowooter That's not bad. Did you use a local solicitor? Was it a fixed price?

We used my blueprint wills. Based in Manchester. She came to our house in the evening. She was lovely and professional and very efficient. I think the wills were 250ish and the change in tenancy was the rest. (Roughly including VAT).