Renting family home

Not sure if this is right section to post in but...

I've lived abroad for the past year and am now in process of moving back to hometown. My parents are in nursing home so their house is rented out to a tenant. Their lease is up in a few months and my new job is in the same area as family home, so I mentioned to my sister that I would take over lease once it ended for current tenants. I can afford the rent, I would be renting in this exact area anyway and I will be very near to nursing home which means I can help out more too. At first this was fine but now sister says it's a bad idea bec it will complicate things financially. We have joint power of attorney over assets. I have a family and I think she could be thinking that it will be impossible to remove us should our parents die and the house needs to be sold but I've already told her that in that instance, I'll either buy her out or if that's not an option, of course I'd sell. I have my heart set on moving in bec Its exactly what I'm looking to rent anyway. What can I do if she won't change her mind? Only her name is on lease as landlord as I was away when she took on tenants. I don't feel it's fair that she should be able to refuse me as it isn't her property and I know our parents would want the family home to have family in it rather then strangers. Thanks in advance for any advice.

I'd say your exactly right as regards what her concerns are, sounds like she's afraid you'll make a claim on the property, possession 9/10's of the law and all that.
Only suggestion I could think of would be to agree to write into your lease agreement that you will not make any claim or lien on the property save what's in wills when the time comes.
FYI If you do happen to inherit it (and you've lived there for, I think it's 3 years) then you wouldn't have to pay inheritance tax on it, whereas if she inherited it, or you both inherit it, she would have to pay tax on all or half of it. You moving in though doesn't change that in any way for her, only way that would change for her is if she was living there

Thanks, that's a good idea. I've no problem doing that, I have a feeling she mentioned it to friends and they started pointing out potential pitfalls, all of which are unfounded from my point of view. I'd never be unfair over money, thankfully my relationships are more important!

I'm planning on leaving it and meeting her when I get back as all conversations have been via phone and she's very headstrong so I'd prefer to meet face to fAce and work through her concerns. I was trying to think of every angle so I can think of solutions to address each issue. I want to get all this sorted within the first meeting bec the last thing I want is to fall out over it.

With regards the inheritance tax, do you know if it would be possible to pay a portion of it on her behalf if it turned out I didn't have to pay it? She has no interest in living in house as she has bought her own in the area but it might act as a sweetener to my case if she's still being stubborn!

Good idea to sort it out face to face, your approach sounds very reasonable, hopefully you can work this out.

She may or may not have thought of, or, as you say had it pointed out to her by others, about the inheritance tax situation (among other things) and that you may end up better off from a tax point of view, if - and there's a lot of ifs here - the house is left or half left to you, it's over three years since you moved in, and that the exemption still exists.

You could of course split the tax bill between you but I'd be very careful about committing to that now - in case any confusion that should the tax bill not arise and she may think you still owe her X amount, also you don't know your situation at that point in the future, and (probably unlikely but) the rule could change and therefore the scenario could change. Not to complicate things further but if her half of the tax bill was more than 30k that would be above the limit for her to receive a gift from you (which it effectively would be a gift) then she'd owe CGT tax on the portion above that.
Don't be too casual about offering to pay / split tax bills - it could be a very large amount depending on the value of the property at the time and the thresholds at the time, and whether it's left to one of you of both of you. (As you each have an exempt threshold amount)

Oh dear, have I given you more questions than answers, sorry, hope some of it helps!

rachel101 said:

I'd never be unfair over money, thankfully my relationships are more important!

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You want to move into the family home. Your sister is not comfortable with that.

Rent somewhere else!

In 6 months time she may feel differently but if as you say your relationship is more important I suggest you leave it!

I need to move into that area as I have medical needs and theres better services in the area for me. Houses rarely come up for rent there as it's very settled. My sister knows this and agreed with it until recently. If she has valid reasons then fair enough, but so far there's nothing that can't be sorted with a lease and I have no problem agreeing to reasonable conditions. If she's blindly putting finances above my health, then our relationship will be changed and there's nothing I can do about that I'm afraid.

Hippy1975, good point about the tax, I'll just forget about that end of things. I'll just meet up and hopefully we can come to an agreement that everyone is happy with! Thanks for the replies.