The reliefs are generous but the clawbacks are unforgiving. We'll map the move, the timing and the paperwork so your property ends up where you want it — without an unexpected tax bill.
Property and trading risk make uneasy bedfellows. If a valuable property sits inside the same company that runs a busy, risky trade, one bad year or one unexpected claim can put that property in the firing line. That's exactly the situation we'd usually want to fix: a group structure lets you separate the two — and for landlords and owner-managers it can also tidy up ownership and make a future sale far cleaner.
This guide explains how to move a property company into a group, and how to transfer a property between companies that are already in a group. We will cover the two reliefs that make intra-group moves so attractive — no-gain/no-loss transfers for Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) group relief — and the two traps that catch people out: the SDLT clawback and the degrouping charge. For the bigger picture, start with our complete group structures guide.
In our experience, the clients who ask us about this tend to be in one of three situations — and there are three common reasons we'd bring a property company under a group umbrella, usually with a holding company (HoldCo) at the top owning the shares in each subsidiary.