IHT residential relief? only 1 parent on deeds (the one who died first)

[SummerCycling]

TITLE CORRECTION the parent on the deeds is the surviving parent. The parent who has passed away was never on the deeds. Sorry for writing such a confusing title!!
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Anyone know the rules about the IHT £175k residential relief on property (family home for decades) where only one parent has ever been on the deeds?

My Dad came to the UK with my Mum after they met abroad. They got married in the UK but continued living in Dad's country till my Mum was about to give birth to me.

They moved in with my Gran. When she died she left the house to my Mum.

My Dad died some years ago.

When my Mum dies, will my siblings and I be allowed to claim the IHT residential relief for both our parents, or only for my Mum? Mum is leaving everything to her children. My Dad never lived anywhere else in the UK from when he came here until his death - but never actually owned a share of the family home.

I am not being money grabbing, we just need to know because we're paying for Mum's live-in care and therefore have to get an overview.

Thanks!

Only the parent who owns the property gets the relief automatically
You can’t claim for someone who never owned the property

It’s purely about ownership

However
There is a possibility of claiming beneficial ownership ( if he paid towards the mortgage, invested financially in it etc ) but as they are deceased it could be even more difficult a process than it is normally
You should definitely get legal advice if you want to go down this route

@DrPrunesqualer

Thanks for your reply.

His income will have paid for the bills and maintenance for 40 years, but it'd be impossible to prove that now. He did the gardening and all the DIY.

Yes we are going to get legal advice. I just thought people on here might know from their knowledge / experience.

As he didn’t pay towards the mortgage I think you’ll struggle.

but good luck

There was no mortgage because it was my Gran's house and she left it in her will to my Mum. All 3 generations lived together. It's the only home my Dad had for the last 40 years of his life (he died young).

@DrPrunesqualer

Are you a solicitor / financial adviser / knowledgeable about IHT or is this your best guesswork to try to help answer my question? (I don't mean this nastily I really appreciate your replies!) Just asking 🙂

No
Im an Architect
but i dealt with my aunts property sale with my uncle not on the deeds. ( no idea why but I suspect he didn’t want to as he couldn’t read or write and maybe didn’t want to admit that to anyone )

She died after him and it was a question i queried with HMRC.

Most of the money to purchase the property in the early 60s was hers but he did work so some of his earnings will have gone into paying it off.

HMRC did not consider the property part of his estate though

I'd post on the legal board instead of Property/DIY.

For IHT purposes, the property would have to have been owned as tenants in common or joint tenants. Then when the first owned dies, they would pass their share as TIC to the remaining owner. For JT, the ownership automatically passes to the remaining owner.
As the first person to die in this case was not a JT or TIC, there was no property to pass on to the remaining spouse so there was no residential relief.
How big is your DMs estate? Bearing in mind that if she’s needing care now, she may well likely need residential care in the future which will eat into her estate. Also, I’m assuming she’s paying for her care out of her income, not you.

It's really sad when people lose out due to things like not being able to read or write. My Dad only had primary school level education.

Thanks for your advice, that's a good idea I wasn't sure where to post this.

House is worth about £1.4m apparently, but no other assets. Worth that due to location in an area that wasn't even in London when my Gran and Grandad bought it, but is now.

We are paying for her care. She'd be devastated to move out of her house.

My parents and Aunt and Uncle lived in a similar area.
Watford
All the new builds now are sold as Watford, London.

Agree. It’s very sad.
For my family it was a case of needing their help on the farms so they rarely attended school which would have finished at age 14 technically.