Transferring house to elderly relative?

A weird conversation came up in the pub tonight: help solve an argument. The question of transferring ownership of a property into an elderly relatives name with the point that they would soon pass away and the original owner would be guaranteed to be left the property they previously owned in their will.

My argument was that their relative is in a nursing home and is not of sound mind not to mention it's the most bizarre transfer and surely someone in a bank or something at some point would question this process... Any ideas?

There's no problem transferring property to an elderly person, or a person of unsound mind - why should there be?. Where the cunning plan falls apart is that a person of unsound mind cannot make a will, so there's no guarantee that it would be willed as planned.

It would be a fairly odd transaction, and if it were to be done to, say, avoid a legitimate debt, the court would have good cause to look carefully into it, and possibly void the transfer.

Don't think there is any debt involved, just potentially pulling a fast one.

Thanks tho. I thought so.

There is also the question of gift tax. Does the value of the property fall above or below the gift tax threshold? The nature of the relationship between the relatives would come into play there.

The only reason to do this is to hide the property presumably from creditors/a bank. If the transfer is done for fraudently reasons it can be set aside. But then again many developers have transferred property to their wife's without a bother so I guess we can learn from them.

There will be the cost of the transfer, the person receiving the 'gift' would be liable for tax presumably, and then there is the problem of the elderly person not being able to 'will' the property back and the inheritence tax that might be payable if it is inherited.

First think that is required is a solicitor willing to do the transfer.