Joint owned house, co-owner living in it

Gregor Samsa

My brother and I have inherited a house, 50:50. There's no mortgage or anything on the house.

He will be living in it, alone.

He wants to pay me a sum per month.

Am I right in these assumptions in regards to taxation?

1. Revenue will expect him to pay me 50% of the market rate of rent on the house.
2. I'll have to pay tax on this rental income.

I think he was hoping for a more "informal" arrangement. I assume that would be a risky move?

I understand that I'll have a 50% liability on maintenance and upkeep of the property. That's fine.

Will he become my tenant in any way, even though he owns half the house? Does this give me any responsibilities?

I'll add that we get on very well, so there's no friction here or anything. I just want to know what the situation is.

Cyclepath

There are several options:

1. Keep it informal and simply agree that he spends the money he would otherwise give you on maintenance/upkeep/improvements to the property. E.g. does it need new windows, boiler, etc?

2. Allow him to give you cash sums informally at irregular intervals that have nothing to do with rent whatsoever...

3. You could notionally rent the room you would otherwise use in the house back to him under the Revenue's 'rent a room' scheme allowing him to pay you up to 14K annually, tax free. However to qualify for the tax relief you'd be asserting that the home is your usual address.

My preference here would be to keep it as informal as possible right now, but to plan and contract for future events where either one of you might need to liquidate your share of the property.