At the moment, our main residence and an apartment (which is presently occupied by my daughter and her husband) are jointly owned by my wife, son, daughter and I as joint tenants. I am thinking of transferring the properties into a newly incorporated company with four of us being the shareholders and named as directors of the company. Can you please let me know the tax implications - whether the transfer will be subject to stamp duty land tax (SDLT) even though there are no actual funds involved and capital gain tax if we were to subsequently sell the properties.

Transferring property into a connected company will trigger a SDLT liability, based on the present market value of the property, irrespective of the consideration, ie without taking into account how much the company pays for the property, and even if the company pays nothing for the property. Subject to principal private residence (PPR) relief it will also trigger a capital gains tax (CGT) liability based on the difference between the present market value of the property and what you originally paid for the property. At the moment you are eligible to PPR relief from CGT, but when in the company this relief will not be available.