What’s this seven years rule?

One of the most frequently asked questions we hear is whether you have to “go seven years before the gift of my house has worked”.

The “seven year rule” is a rule about making significant gifts of assets to avoid paying inheritance tax on your death and is not at all connected to care home assessments. The fact that you gift your property, yet continue to enjoy a right to live in it, means that this is not a valid way of gifting an asset to avoid Inheritance Tax and as the ‘seven years rule’ is all about inheritance tax it has no bearing on gifts of this type.

So how long does it have to be done for before it works?

Sadly, there is no answer to this question, as the rules about gifting of assets to intentionally avoid care costs are very complicated. It is best to book an appointment with one of our solicitors specialising in this area and we can explain to you face to face the specifics of this type of gift, and dispel some of the myths out there. You can then make a fully informed and advised decision, confident that you have all of the relevant information to hand before you decide to go ahead and make the gift or not.