A single dwelling house’s title is held on joint personal names but we are currently splitting the property into two flats. One of those flats will be sold and the other one will be kept as a long term investment. Apart from splitting the title and generating leases we would like to keep the freehold of the property. We own a limited company in both names. What would be the best option to proceed?

Arthur Weller replies:
See HMRC’s Stamp Duty Land Tax manual at www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capitalgains-manual/cg70774 and stamp-duty-landtax-manual/sdltm16040 regarding the possibility of generating leases without paying capital gains tax and stamp duty land tax, by doing a ‘sale and leaseback’ to your limited company.