Best way for children to buy house for parent

Hi All,

Pretty specific question and hopefully this is the best spot for the question.

Scenario: Sole surviving parent wishes to transfer the proceeds of sale of PPR to children with the understanding that children would purchase property for parent to live in. Children: One has own PPR, another is renting and has never bought (ie would be 1st time buyer) and another is non-resident (but would be 1st time buyer as well if they ever return to Ireland).

What is the best way to transfer the proceeds equally to 3 children and still preserve or take advantage of the 1st time buyer status of younger children ? If one child has PPR would the property purchase be seen as an investment property and be stamped accordingly ?

If no one on AAM can help would a solicitor, accountant or tax advisor be the best one to ask?

Thanks in advance

Is there any specific reason for doing this? I ask because very often the fundamentals behind the question being asked are not clear to posters here although they may very well be clear to and well reasoned by the OP.

Why does parent not simply buy a new property themselves? And will it to the family? Is there an desire to minimise future probate costs? But what about security for the parent?

Or use part proceeds to (a) gift money to non owning parties and (b) part buy with current owning offspring in shares to reflect percentage inheritance? and will parents own share to remaining offspring?

Gifting the money will have no impact on ftb status. What is the approximate value of the house?

mf

Well done mf1 for asking the pertinant question straight away!

Parent is currently going through seperation "negotiations" with current spouse - current PPR held jointly with spouse will be sold and proceeds split (post signed seperation agreement but before finalisation of divorce) - Parent wishes to protect these proceeds by transferring to children. Probable available proceeds after costs and taxes - €300,000

Current plan under consideration is that children would buy a property and parent would live there and pay rent thereby reducing assets and monthly income. The expectation is that current spouse will come looking for more money post signed seperation agreement - parent wishes to reduce net worth in anticipation of future claims for maintenance.

Further question: If three siblings buy a property and if two are ftb's and one is not is the property treated as an investment property for stamp or only partially so? Alternatively, is there any way for the two ftb siblings to have a share in the property and still be ftb's if they want to buy their own houses in the future ? Could the property be bought through a trust ? (I think it can but I think this is expensive?)

Ummmm. If I was acting for other spouse I'd be sceptical about the whole thing. Actually, if I was the Judge, I'd be saying ah! ah!. Don't be moving your assets around.

All of these cases are different. But if the Divorce is going to happen quickly -what is separation time span? - why not do all things together? The other spouse can then only come back looking for maintenance and if a figure is agreed or ordered by the Court, its not really going to get varied that much in the future.

As regards stamp duty, given that two of the offspring are ftb's, I would seriously question the concept of them getting into an investment property situation ( yes it probably will be duty payable at investors rates), particularly where a Divorce is involved.

Any other views?

mf