Last possibilities ‘Jubelton’: what can you still do?

15-2-2024 — 

This year it is still possible to meet another person between 18 and 40 years old make a tax-free donation of €106,671 for the owner-occupied home, also known as the 'jubelton'. The cabinet will reduce the exemption to €27,231 as of January 1, 2023 and will definitively abolish it as of January 1, 2024. What options are still available to make optimal use of the owner-occupied home exemption?

What is a gift for the owner-occupied home? Donating an amount for the renovation of the owner-occupied home and the repayment of an owner-occupied home debt. In order to invoke the home ownership exemption, you must meet the following requirements.

• The recipient of the gift is between the ages of 18 and 40.
• The amount has been paid by the donor.
• The person who receives the amount spends it on the owner-occupied home. This must be done no later than in the second calendar year following the calendar year in which the increased exemption was invoked.

What if the donor does not have the full amount of the home acquisition exemption in one year? Or if the recipient of the gift does not yet have an owner-occupied home in the year of the gift? In those cases, the law offers you two options.

1. The spending option

The recipient of the gift can use the gift for the owner-occupied home no later than the second calendar year after the calendar year of the gift.

2. The Scatter Opportunity

The donor can donate the amount of the home acquisition exemption in two years.

 

Below is an example for each option.

Spending option: donate in 2022 and spend on your own home in 2023 or 2024

As indicated in the last conditions of the home acquisition exemption, it is possible to donate the full amount of the home acquisition exemption in 2022. Subsequently, the person who received the gift must have used the amount for the owner-occupied home by 2024 at the latest. In order to make use of this scheme, the amount of the donation must actually have been paid in full (transferred) to the transferee in 2022. In this situation, the owner-occupied home exemption will only be invoked in 2022 in the gift tax return.

 

 

Spread option: pour the ‘jubelot’ in parts

In addition to spending the gift at a later date, you can donate the home acquisition exemption spread over two years. The spread is only possible if the recipient of the gift is not yet 40 years old in the last year of the gift. With this option, for example, €70,000 in 2022 and €36,671 in 2023 can be donated. In both cases, the owner-occupied home exemption can be invoked. This must be laid down in a private agreement by 2022. Declarations must also be made for both donations.