NMDMS

Hi - Thanks again for helping me understand this, it is much appreciated. I see now that the confusion arose with the understanding of the leasehold; the ownership IS the leasehold. In England, it means that I own the property but I don't own the land (details here: https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property). The land is owned by a freeholder who charge leaseholders a service charge for upkeep of the building, and ground rent. There is no income for me associated with the leasehold, only expenses! Those expenses (service and ground rent) are incurred in the letting of the property, therefore based on previous answers will be claimable by my wife once she has 100% beneficial ownership of the property. Many thanks for getting me to this point.

Hi, Thanks for the reply. This seems to contradict the first answer given by Admin 19. Quoting from the first reply: "if you do transfer 100% of the ownership of the property to your wife then she would be entitled to claim any expenses incurred in the letting of the property regardless of which bank account these came out of" And in the second reply I am told "when retaining legal ownership of a property, you would remain liable to tax on any income arising from the rental business". I am struggling to understand how both these statements can be true; would appreciate your help in getting this straight in my head. Many thanks

Hi, thanks for the brilliant reply. I take from it that if my wife has 100% beneficial ownership and hence takes 100% of the income then she is also responsible for 100% of the expenses, which is great news. I might have confused things regarding the leasehold, let me restate and see if that changes your second point, I own the flat as a leasehold (as per https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property). This means that I pay ground rent and an annual service charge for maintenance of the building to the landlord/freeholder, a management company that owns the building. These are deductible expenses for me today. Can I take it from your earlier comment that these will be deductible for my wife when she is 100% beneficial owner, even though they will be addressed to me as I would remain the legal owner (leaseholder) of the flat? Thanks again

* I asked this exact question at https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/ifp/f39fb6a2-8801-ef11-a81c-6045bd0b5701 but I am unable to load that page without an error, so repeating it here - apologies * Hi, I am the sole owner of an unmortgaged buy-to-let property that I am looking to transfer ownership of - either legal or beneficial - to my spouse for tax purposes. My question relates to the expenses associated with the rental. It is a leasehold property which I, as legal owner, pay ground rent and service charges on, and it is let and managed through a lettings agency, with whom I alone currently have a contract. If I was to go down the beneficial ownership route, and I was to transfer 100% beneficial ownership of the property to my wife meaning she is entitled to 100% of the rental income, does she also assume responsibility for the aforementioned expenses, even though they are addressed to me? If not, particularly regarding the leasehold charges, what arrangements are necessary for HMRC to recognise these as expenses against her income since I would remain the sole legal leaseholder as far as the freeholder is concerned? Many thanks

Thanks for the guidance, much appreciated

Hi, thanks very much for the example. I understand that if I had a equity trading account and that over time I purchased shares in XYZCo that went into one holding, that when coming to dispose of some or all of that holding that S104 would apply; it makes sense, there is no way to distinguish between purchases at that point. However in my case, I have the ability to sell all or some of a particular purchase; a purchase where I can identify the acquisition price and hence the exact gain or loss of the sale of those shares. Is this irrelevant? i.e. S104 still applies in this scenario? And, by extension, it would mean that it made no difference which tranche of shares I elect to sell (those with the highest acquisition price or the lowest acquisition price)?

Hello - I have a question regarding section 104 holdings. I receive RSUs as part of my overall compensation from my employer, which are made available to me via a US broker (my employer is US headquartered). Upon each vesting event, those vested shares are presented to me as a seperate line item in the broker's portal, clearly showing me the acquisition price for each tranche of shares. I have the ability to sell all, or some, of any specific tranche. My question is: if I sell from a particular tranche - where I know the precise acquisition costs for those *specific* shares - do I still need to view these as part of an overall section 104 holding and base my gain on the average acquisition cost across the whole holding? Many thanks, NMDMS