Owning a property with someone else
How to record a property you own jointly, so your figures and your tax use your share and nothing is counted twice.
The rule that keeps it simple: record the whole property, and tell us your share. We do the dividing.
Set it up
- When you add the property, or with Edit details later, set “Owned by” to Me and someone else.
- Put your share in Your share (%), like 50 for half or 25 for a quarter. It's the share you own, from your declaration of trust or the title. If you own it as joint tenants rather than tenants in common, you own half each, so put 50.
- Enter the whole property's value, mortgage and rent, not your part of them.
Owned with someone through your company? Pick My company instead: a company pays corporation tax on its own profit, so there's no share to divide.
What to record
Record every payment for the property in full, whoever paid it: all the rent, the whole insurance, the whole repair bill. That's what makes your statement match the property's real accounts, and lets us work out your share correctly.
- If the rent comes to you both separately, say the agent pays you half each, your bank shows only your half. Record the full rent, or upload the agent's statement, which shows the whole amount.
- If you each pay half of the costs from your own accounts, record each cost at its full amount, not the half you paid.
- Costs that are yours alone, like your own accountant, go under Whole portfolio. They count in full against your tax figures, because only you paid them. Record only your own costs there.
Get this wrong and the figures are quietly off: a half-rent recorded on a 50% share shows you a quarter of the profit.
What uses your share
| Where | Whole property or your share? |
|---|---|
| The property's page: value, mortgage, equity, rent | Whole property, with a note of your share under Equity |
| The overview's Equity | Whole, with your share of it underneath |
| Your statement's “Your year in money” and Property by property | Whole property, so you can check it against the agent's statement |
| Your statement's For your tax return | Your share. It says “Using your share” and names the property and your percentage. |
| If you sold it, on the property's page | Enter whole-property figures; the tax and cash shown are for your share |
Married or in a civil partnership
If you're married or in a civil partnership and live together, HMRC taxes the rent from a jointly owned property half each, whatever your shares, unless you've told them otherwise.
- You own it 50:50: put 50. Nothing else to do.
- You own it in other shares, and you've both signed HMRC's Form 17: put your real share. You're taxed on it from the date you signed.
- You own it in other shares, but haven't sent Form 17: you're still taxed half each. Put 50 here, so your tax figures match what HMRC expects. Capital gains tax is different: it follows the share you really own. So to check “If you sold it”, change your share to the real one, look, then change it back.
For when a different split saves tax, and how to change it, see our guide Owning a buy-to-let with your partner.
The other owner's figures
The other owner reports their share on their own tax return. Your statement gives them what they need:
- Open your statement, pick the tax year, and pick the joint property under “Property”.
- Press Download Excel. The figures above the tax section are for the whole property, so they can take their own share of them, and the Payments sheet lists every line.
If they use NestInsights too, they add the same property on their own account with their own share, and record the same whole-property payments. Each of you then sees your own tax figures.