Hi.
Hope you're well.Just to let you know that I am getting in touch from the UK as I couldn't find any free advice here.Hope you can help.

My brother has just separated with his wife and is concerned what will happen to the house they have lboth lived in for 7 years.They do not have any children and she has now moved out..
The dilemma for myself is that my brother wants to sign the house over to my husband and me and as his sister I feel obliged to help him.Will this help him or is it futile to take this route?
Our main concern is obviously for ourselves as this is a messy situation.
We are currently renting(low rent as my husbands dad owns the house)and saving for a deposit for our own house.The council tax,water bills,gas bills etc to the house we currently live in are in our names.

Please help.
Thank you.

Hi there. I'm not a legal expert and don't know how often our legal brains check out the divorce thread but if one doesn't pop along it might be worth posting on the law section.

Just a couple of thoughts from me. Sounds like your brother wants to 'hide' some of his assets to avoid his wife getting a share. Do you want to get involved in helping him try to do this? I don't know their history but courts share out assets for a reason and it seems rather unfair to me. Since the wife obviously knows about the house I would have very strong doubts that he would actually get away with it. Courts go to great lengths to check out 'hidden' assets and this wouldn't be that hard to find. If the court finds that one partner is making attempts to hide assets it has the power to freeze all assets so your brother may find himself unable to access his bank accounts etc.

From your perspective he wants to make you appear to be the owner whilst you are saving to buy your own property. So what happens then? Do you move into his house and risk the fact that the courts may make it so that it has to be sold out from under you when the divorce proceedings determine it is a joint asset of the marriage? Or do you keep it as an extra house and buy your own and risk running into problems with capital gains tax as you will technically own more than one property further down the line. Your brother is probably setting himself up for CGT problems if he does this, and is he legally sole owner to start with?

This seems like a really bad idea to me. I hope our legal brains can give you a fuller answer on the legal pitfalls but my gut feeling it that you should keep well away from this.

Hi QLP and thank you for your response.
We have advised that he speaks with CAB as it appears he is clutching at straws and not seeing the wider picture.
Thank you again.
H

Moved to Family Law.

Not sure how UK laws work in this matter, but generally one can't just give away property. There may be legal and tax implications to doing so.

If the property is in both his and his wife's name, then they would both have to sign any transfer of ownership. If its solely in his name, and he does transfer it, the proceeds may become part of marital assets that need to be divided.

He really needs to go over this with his solicitor.