Joint owners or tenants in common

[sodeflated]

Hello, I apologise if this thread is rather long.

My parents purchased their property in 2000 and initially owned the property as joint owners but later changed to tenants in common in 2007. When my father died in 2012 I inherited his half of the property. In 2015 we visited a solicitor to get my name added alongside my mother's to the title deed and remove my father's name. We also requested that my mother and I change to joint owners instead of tenants in common as my mother was worried that I would start moving my friends or future boyfriends into the property. I remember saying to the solicitor that if either of us died we wanted the survivor to inherit.

My mother died in 2022 and I notified the Land Registry of her death and that I was now the sole owner. They responded asking for more information saying the form A restriction still applied to the property. I wasn't sure exactly what was meant by a form A restriction but responded as best as I could. Unfortunately I was unable to locate any correspondence from the solicitor we had dealt with in 2015 at this time and I just responded with a covering letter and forms RX3 and ST5 that they asked me to fill out. For some inexplicable reason I had thought that what they were asking about was the timeline of how the form A restriction had initially been applied to the property back in 2007. I therefore did not even mention the solicitor visit in 2015 by my mother and me.

Anyway, yesterday I finally managed to locate the paperwork from the solicitor visit in 2015. There were 3 letters in total all headed 'Transfer of Equity'. The first letter states "I have now been able to prepare the Transfer Deed which I enclose ready for signing. This document will transfer the ownership of the property into your joint names".

The second letter states "I can confirm that completion has taken place and the Transfer has been dated with today's date, making it legally effective. I have also applied for registration of the transfer into your joint names."

The third letter states "I am pleased to confirm the registration of the transfer has been completed at the Land Registry. You will see this shows your joint ownership as tenants in common."

I can remember seeing this letter back in 2015 and just reading the first line. I just assumed from seeing the words 'joint owners' in the first two letters that our instructions had been carried out and I I put the letter away.

I really don't know what went wrong, whether the solicitor made a mistake (he no longer works for the company), or whether Land Registry made a mistake back in 2015. Where the solicitor referred to the term 'joint owners' in the first two letters I had just assumed he had done everything we had asked for. Any forms I had filled out for probate I had filled out in good faith thinking the property was held as joint owners!

Can I request the file (which I believe is kept for about 10 years) from the solicitor's office? Would this give me any information about what we had initially requested the solicitor to do? What is kept in a file, is it just the letters and forms he sent us or would there be a copy of any notes he had made at our first appointment or any tape recordings of our meeting (I don't know if that's a thing that solicitors do when they meet clients)? If anyone can help shed some light on this I would be very very grateful. If it does only contain the letters and forms he sent us I don't want to go to the expense of paying out for no reason. Would the solicitor's office ask why I want it? Is the file something I have to sit and read at the solicitor's office or is it something I am allowed to take home and read in my own time, without feeling rushed? And lastly how much does it roughly cost to retrieve a file from the archives?

Thank you.

[Pezza54]

When you own a property with someone the joint ownership can either be by joint tenants or tenants in common.
You stated that you asked the solicitor to remove your father's name from the title deeds and add yours instead as your father's will.
The solicitor's third letter confirms your name had been added to the deeds and you and your mother jointly own the property as tenants in common. You should have read the full letter carefully and queried it at the time if you thought it was wrong and did not comply with your verbal instructions.

Did your mother leave a will?
Do you have any siblings?

[sodeflated]

If you read my first post again you will see that I wrote "We also requested that my mother and I change to joint owners instead of tenants in
common .........".

My mother did leave a will.

No, I have no siblings.

[Pezza54]

Did your mother leave her entire estate to you?
Are you the named executer in her will?

[sodeflated]

Yes to both questions.

[Pezza54]

If you haven't already applied for Grant of Probate you should do so now. There is no time limit. You will need to complete appropriate IHT forms and send to HMRC
When you receive the grant you need to go back to the Land Registry enclosing a copy of the grant and a copy of your mother's will. Hopefully the problem will be solved and there will be no need to contact the solicitor

[sodeflated]

That was all done and probate was granted last year. This I did in good faith not realising that we were actually tenants in common and not joint owners. I'm not sure if that makes any difference to the IHT or probate totals. I know I declared the value of the property on all the forms and the value of my mother's half share of the property. I'm just wondering if there is any sort of comeback on me from either the HMRC, Probate or Land Registry? And what I can do to rectify this problem. I'm panicking.

[Pezza54]

Your mother's estate may have a total IHT nil rate band of £500k (£325k NRB + £175K RNRB) assuming the half value of the house is £175k or more at the time of her death. If the half value was less than £175k the total of £500k will be reduced.
HMRC will not be interested if there is no IHT to pay but you should still complete new IHT forms as necessary and amend existing ones that are incorrect

[sodeflated]

The net value of the estate on the IHT forms was approx £533K which included £300K that was the value of her half share of the property (the property was valued at £600K in total). I deducted from this £325K NRB. I then had a total figure of £300K RNRB (this was my mother's RNRB plus I was able to transfer my father's RNRB which was not used at the time of his death. I got this figure from the .gov RNRB calculator). So, would the IHT nil rate band still be £500K or would it be a higher amount with the increased RNRB figure? Thanks.

[Pezza54]

Can you recall the value of the house when your father died in 2012?
Did your father leave anything in his will to anyone else apart from your mother and his half share of the house to you?

[sodeflated]

Total value of the house when father died in 2012 was £325K (so his half share was £162.5K) and he left everything to me except for a small legacy of £10K to my son. The total net value of the estate on the IHT forms was approx 329K so IHT was paid.

[Pezza54]

As your father died in 2012 and RNRB came into place in 2017 there is no transferable RNRB
In 2012 the NRB was £325k. Provided your father did not leave anything other than his share of the house to you and the remainder to your mother then his transferable NRB is £325k less 50% value of the house at the time of his death.
Your mother's estate is entitled to a total NRB of £500k
The RNRB for your mother has to be applied for on a separate IHT form

[sodeflated]

I'm confused even more now. My father left everything to me apart from the £10K legacy to my son. Nothing was left to my mother.

On the .gov website it states as follows:-

Any residence nil rate band (RNRB) that's not used when someone dies can go to their spouse or civil partner's estate when they die. This transfer can also happen if the first of the couple died before 6 April 2017, even though the residence nil rate band was not available at that time.

[Pezza54]

Yes you are right, my mistake. I am surprised that the full £175k RNRB can be transferred when the death of the first spouse pre-dates 2017
So your mother's estate has a total IHT NRB of £675k
As your father left everything to you and your son IHT would have been paid on £4k
You have 2 years from the date of your mother's death to claim the transferable RNRB

[sodeflated]

So I'm just looking at the figures again. I don't think I explained very well the amount of RNRB that was applied to my mother's estate.

What I should have said on my posting (no.9) was that £300K was the total amount of my father's and my mother's RNRB. I confused this by using the word 'plus' by saying 'this was my mother's RNRB plus I was able to transfer my father's RNRB which was not used at the time of his death". It should have read "this was my mother's RNRB amount which included RNRB transferred from my father which was not used at the time of his death".

My sincere apologies.