Asking vendor to pay stamp duty

skintchick

If he's been having trouble selling, he'll be open to negotiation, so see where you get. I think asking him to pay all of it is ambitious, but perhaps the 2% as someone suggested would work.

mr_fishbulb

sportbeth wrote:

Every estate agent we've spoken to in Kent insists that the housing market is still booming and we have to pay the asking price. So why has this guy had it on for a year and dropped it twice?

Estate agents make their money on comission of the final sale price of the house. 1% of the full asking price is more than 1% of 95% of the asking price.

Estate agents are profiting a lot from the housing boom. They should lower their fees.
Say a house cost £200,000 10 years ago and the EA got 1% = £2000.
If the same house now costs £300,000 the EA gets 1% = £3000.

What is the extra £1000 being spent on by the EA? I don't see the associated costs of an EA selling a house going up by 50% in 10 years. It's all profit to them.

silvercar

If they've dropped the price twice, it suggests that the original price was around £290k.. I reckon they will be pretty upset that your suggesting a further price drop to below the £250k mark. They might tell you the property is keenly priced now and they want higher offers, but hey, a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay.

sportbeth

Interesting point this - and when we went around some estate agents last weekend the simplest of questions seemed to baffle them - perhaps a case of relaxing on their laurels in a boom market a bit too much?

For example, one housing estate has a lake running adjacent to it - we asked the estate agent if there was any issue with flood risks and therefore flood insurance. The agent simply responded with "I don't know"

The next agent we spoke to asked us what our situtation was, we said contracts exchanged two weeks ago and completion date expected in 4-6 weeks subject to planning permission. he then said "oh no, so that would be 6 weeks off then"

Only one estate agent since we have been looking for the last year has phoned us for feedback after a viewing. I think that's pretty bad - when we were selling and people weren't touching it we were asking all sorts of questions - is it the decor? Is it the Area? Is it the price? Our EA was reluctant to call the viewers to ask, clearly they were too busy dealing with the houses that were selling but for what we paid them to get shot of the place that wasn't very productive!

bylromarha

Is it worth offering 249,999 for the house and £6k for fixtures and fittings to remain? Only 1% stamp duty for you to pay, vendor gets your offer of £256k.

Was told by EA this can be done depending on the size of house and amount over threshold, but advice from an EA so take with a pinch of salt. Worth investigating though if it's possible and legal!

balsingh

bylromarha wrote:

Is it worth offering 249,999 for the house and £6k for fixtures and fittings to remain? Only 1% stamp duty for you to pay, vendor gets your offer of £256k.

Was told by EA this can be done depending on the size of house and amount over threshold, but advice from an EA so take with a pinch of salt. Worth investigating though if it's possible and legal!

Apparently this is a very popular way when the house price is close the the stap duty threshold. I recently looked at a house for 129k (9k over the zero stamp duty threshold) and I was told that its quite easy to price it as 119k with 10k in fixures & fittings.

xela_17

I'm sure this is being cracked down on and that you can only get away with offering a reasonable price for fixtures and fittings. On a 129k house, 10k for fittings is not reasonable! However, 6k for fittings on a 250k house may well be.

sashacat

offer the full price and get it written in the contract that they pay the SD....It had definitely been done before......and get some of the price for F&F as this will reduce the stamp duty , but only a reasonable amount as the revenue watch properties that are near SD margins

nmiah786

distilled wrote:

Well done nmiah someone has helped themself to my calculator!!!

That would be me then!!! Actually, excel is a very good calculator if you find your calculator doing walkies!!!! :rotfl:

To the OP be very carefull if you decide to go via the £250k plus £6k for F&F, the Inland Revenue are very interested in this!!!

Why dont you just go to the EA with your offer but state that it will be dependant on the vendor paying the stamp duty, then negotiage between a 1% and 2% split.

As yourself, realistically how much are you willing to pay for this house?

robwend

god i wish i could afford a house worth that much!!! blimey