Readers' forum: Property slice

Over recent months our practice has had various questions on the subject of jointly-owned properties and the allocation of income from them. I would appreciate readers’ thoughts on the following scenario.

A client owns a property jointly with his wife and for many years they have returned the monthly income of £1 000 in equal shares. However from that income they have paid £400 a month to their daughter who has a long-term debilitating illness that has prevented her from working.

The daughter’s husband died last year so now the parents would like to give her £800 a month. They prefer not to transfer the property to the daughter because this would result in a substantial capital gain. The daughter will inherit the house when the parents die.

The property is worth about £200 000 and cost them about £50 000 many years ago. It occurs to us...