Tax implications for couple buying together with different deposit amounts

Would there be any tax implication in a situation when an unmarried couple is buying a house together with a joint mortgage and one is providing 70% of the deposit? The house is meant to be owned 50-50% with a joint tenancy.

There might be. But why would you do it like this?

You should do a written agreement before you buy the house and set out the following:



If you don't do this, John is giving Mary a gift of €4,000. In theory, she should declare it for CAT purposes and pay CAT. However, I doubt if the Revenue would be bothered by it.


Your agreement must cover what happens if you split up and have to sell the house.
If you don't, and you split up soon after you buy the house, Mary would own half the house and would owe only half of the mortgage.




Brendan

Thanks Brendan, this makes sense. We absolutely intend to have a legal agreement written up but we were thinking along the lines of saying that should we split up and sell the house/one person buy the other out, the formula used to calculate who gets how much/owes how much would reflect the larger deposit put in by one party. Obviously if the house reduces in value, a proportionate percentage of that. The reason why we want to have equal ownership of the house is so that we can have joint tenancy without the need for a will or the need to pay inheritance tax should one of us die.

who gets how much/owes how much would reflect the larger deposit put in by one party. is vague and would be a source of argument if you split up.

The formula I have laid out will easily decide who gets what if the property is sold. It is precise.

Are you sure that joint tenancy means that there will be no CAT on death? I very much doubt it. I will ask about it in this thread:
http://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/joint-tenancy-vs-tenancy-in-common.194981/