Should I change from sole ownership on house deeds to joint ownership?

I recently heard that properties should be in joint ownership between husband and wife to avoid going into probate and incurring legal fees upon death even if a will is written passing on everything to your spouse. Does anyone know if this is correct?

My husband and I own our family home which is in our joint names and also an investment property which is also under joint names. However, I bought an investment property 30 years ago, before we were married and it is in my name only. Should I change this now to joint ownership? Will the legal fees be expensive to do this? What are the advantages and savings of doing this after my death? Also, I have just noticed that this investment property was never registered with Land Registry - it has no folio number on the landdirect.ie site. Should I register this property now, 30 years later, through my solicitor and what would the costs be?
Many thanks for any answers!

If you've left everything to your spouse in your will than there shouldn't be a problem. You'll have to talk to a solicitor in order to get a price. Not all property had folio number. Was it possible a registry of deeds property? Then it won't appear on Land Direct.

Surely all these questions you should have run by your solicitor first?

Carmar said:

Should I change this now to joint ownership?

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I don't think that anything would be achieved by this.

If you die first, he gets the property and the Capital Gains disappear.

If he is terminally ill before you die, then transfer it in total to him for the Capital Gains to disappear.

Thank you Bronte. Thank you Brendan - I really would not have thought about that possibility to make the CGT 'disappear'. Thank you.

Brendan, the CGT on that investment property is sizeable as it was bought in the 90s. So if the house stays solely in my name and I die (yikes!), my husband inherits that property and CGT is no longer payable if he sells it, is this correct?

It's teased out further in this thread.