Changing Property to Tenants in Common for business reasons

[gino]

I can't say too much about my business, but due to Covid its unfortunately likely to fail over the next 6 months due to no support being available for my firm. I will have paid HMRC the taxes due.
I do have other liabilities and personal director guarantees on those. My spouse had no involvement in the business - no directorship or shareholding.

My residential property is currently owned as Joint Tenants, with both myself and spouse owning all the property.

I am thinking i should change to Tenants in Common and transfer so that i have 1% shares and my spouse 99%.
Is this easy to do? Do i do it myself with Land Registry, or will i need a solicitor to do it?
If i do this, will it keep the family home out of my assets for the director guarantees?


Thanks

[des8]

You are obviously aware that going bankrupt could put your home at risk, and In order to avoid this you are considering transferring your share of the property to your wife

However unless you carried out the transaction more than 5 years ago it is a transaction at undervalue. The Official Receiver is legally allowed to ignore it and proceed to realise your share of any equity.

Here's an article you might find useful
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...goes-bust.html

And section 4 on this site might give you some pointers
https://debtcamel.co.uk/debt-options/bankruptcy/

[gino]

Hi Des8.
Thanks for the reply. I'll have a look at those links.

All personal debts are paid up - apart from the mortgage.
HMRC is paid up personally and in business.
I'm not intending to go bankrupt or have any desire to.

There is a Bounce back loan, which i understand has no director guarantee, but i have funds to repay most of this as i have been very prudent and not wanted to spend the funds through fear of the business going under - have used a small amount, but still sizeable balance left. Demand for my business is current very low, but there is one business agreement where there is potentially risk of a future liability - there is no liability at present, but if the business does fail over the next 6 months, and then 2-3-5 years down the line there was a Professional Indemnity claim, this business agreement has cause to trigger the personal guarantee, i was wondering if putting my share of the house over to the spouse, would keep the family home out the equation? (Sounds like it won't unless its over 5 years). I'm happy to repay any future claim against the personal guarantee on a month by month basis (which i have heard they can do with a 3% over BBR interest charge (fine by me), but my fear is that they want them to force the sale of the house to pay it back in one lump sum - so trying to see if there is anything i could do now to minimise that risk.

PS - not expecting any marital/divorce issues, but if they occur, i'd be happy to sign the home and equity over to the spouse - so not worried about them doing a runner!
Thanks in advance.

[des8]

So your aren't looking for bankruptcy, but a personal guarantee does leave your property at risk.
Even if you could successfully transfer the legal ownership of your house to your spouse the creditor could still go after your share of it as you have a beneficial interest in the property.

Don't you hold PI cover, or is this potential claim coming for an event prior to the retroactive date?

[gino]

Correct - just trying to see if i can minimise the future risk to the house.
Yes, i have PI insurance and will continue with that, but have noticed that excess has multiplied year on year even though no claims for 15 years, so concerned that if a future claim or claims cropped up the current excess would be manageable, but in the unlikely event multiple future claims arose when the excess could run into 10's of thousands it wouldn't be.

[des8]

Re the Excess you could request it not be increased or failing that shop around.

[gino]

Re the Excess you could request it not be increased or failing that shop around.

Unfortunately i don't have a choice due to the industry, market and the general outlook. The FCA attempts to work well to protect the consumer, but they let corporate/business customers get screwed over. Thank you for your thoughts. I think i'll need to think things through and decide what to do. As i said, there is no guarantee anything will happen to my business in the future, but i am risk adverse and have never had this concern, but the way the economy/market might be going its something which has made me think more about potential risks.