Inheritance Tax Act 1984

43 Settlement and related expressions. U.K.

(1) The following provisions of this section apply for determining what is to be taken for the purposes of this Act to be a settlement, and what property is, accordingly, referred to as property comprised in a settlement or as settled property.

(2) “Settlement” means any disposition or dispositions of property, whether effected by instrument, by parol or by operation of law, or partly in one way and partly in another, whereby the property is for the time being—

(a) held in trust for persons in succession or for any person subject to a contingency, or

(b) held by trustees on trust to accumulate the whole or part of any income of the property or with power to make payments out of that income at the discretion of the trustees or some other person, with or without power to accumulate surplus income, or

(c) charged or burdened (otherwise than for full consideration in money or money’s worth paid for his own use or benefit to the person making the disposition) with the payment of any annuity or other periodical payment payable for a life or any other limited or terminable period,

or would be so held or charged or burdened if the disposition or dispositions were regulated by the law of any part of the United Kingdom; or whereby, under the law of any other country, the administration of the property is for the time being governed by provisions equivalent in effect to those which would apply if the property were so held, charged or burdened.

(3) A lease of property which is for life or lives, or for a period ascertainable only by reference to a death, or which is terminable on, or at a date ascertainable only by reference to, a death, shall be treated as a settlement and the property as settled property, unless the lease was granted for full consideration in money or money’s worth; and where a lease not granted as a lease at a rack rent is at any time to become a lease at an increased rent it shall be treated as terminable at that time.

(4) In relation to Scotland “settlement” also includes—

(a) an entail,

(b) any deed by virtue of which an annuity is charged on, or on the rents of, any property (the property being treated as the property comprised in the settlement), and

(c) any deed creating or reserving a proper liferent of any property whether heritable or moveable (the property from time to time subject to the proper liferent being treated as the property comprised in the settlement);

and for the purposes of this subsection “deed” includes any disposition, arrangement, contract, resolution, instrument or writing.

(5) In the application of this Act to Northern Ireland this section shall have effect as if references to property held in trust for persons included references to property standing limited to persons and as if the lease referred to in subsection (3) did not include a lease in perpetuity within the meaning of section 1 of the M1 Renewable Leasehold Conversion Act 1849 or a lease to which section 37 of that Act applies.

Marginal Citations

M1 1849 c. 105.