Must I pay Stamp Duty on a house split sale?

MrJP_2

Hello

I’m about to complete on the sale of a house and I’m splitting the deeds – do I need to pay Stamp Duty on the whole sale or will The Revenue treat it as two separate sales?

I’ll explain… The vendor has put for sale a house with garden which comes witih an adjoining field for a total of 300k. I have agreed to buy the house and garden for 280k and my parents have agreed to buy the field for 20k as this actually backs onto their home and the deeds have now been split to accommodate this.

My thoughts are that I need to pay Stamp Duty on the 280k I am paying for the house but my parents should not have to pay any duty on the 20k they are paying for the field.

My solicitor begs to differ and suggest I need to pay the Duty on the £300k total of the combined sale.

Can anyone offer advise on this one please?

Many thanks - JP

TD5

Is the field part of the domestic cutillage or is it agricultural or grazing land?

I had a feeling that this makes a difference from previous experience.

HTH

Peter

MrJP_2

Hello

In the distant past the field was used for grazing and more recently as an allotment but right now it's just overgrown with scrub. I'd say it was more agricultural than domestic.

Cheers - JP

Richard_Webster

The point is whether the transactions are connected. Would the seller have been prepared to sell just the house to you and the field to someone else nothing to do with you? If yes, then you don' t pay on the extra £20K. If no, you do. In reality it is often the case in this sort of situation that the seller doesn't want to be left with the field. If they were advertised as separate lots then possibly you might get away with it.

Mr A buys two new BTL flats in the same block for about £180K each (a while ago this!). Builder doesn't really care whether it sells 1 flat or 2 to my client and he doesn't get any discount for quantity. So each flat is a separate transaction and only 1% SDLT payable one each.

Mr B has a number of flats he wants to sell at various prices. Someone comes along who offers him a price for the lot (but a figure which was significantly less than what he could have got had he sold them separately). Mr B. only going to proceed if buyer buys them all - so buyer should pay full rate on the total price of all of them.

MrJP_2

Thanks Richard

I can say that the seller would be quite happy to sell the field to anyone with the required funds.

It is a private sale though so there is no estate agent involvement or adverts to say that we're looking at two separate lots. Does it boil down to a question of being able to evidence this?

Thanks - JP