FTB - stamp duty loopholes?

Richard_Webster

By the way for what its worth you do not need to mess around with £249,995 etc - you only pay 1% SDLT if you pay £250,000 or nothing if you qualify as a FTB. It is only over £250,000 that the rate goes up to 3%.

captainpants

Thanks Richard. That's good to know.

theartfullodger

Surely the British way is to pay those taxes fairly due promptly & with good humour...

captainpants

perhaps theartfullodger but I'm not british!
And no doubt the £8100 saved in stamp duty would be used to pay the council tax, the tv licence, road tax etc so it's not like the government is not going to recoup it in one way or another....

Emily1975

I think the stamp duty is meant to be paid in addition to other taxes, rather than instead of!

Chinkle

I'm not quite sure why you are worrying about the stamp duty limit when your survey has valued the house at less than this.

Unless you have the cash deposit to stump up the difference and foolhardy enough to pay more than the house has been valued at - then submit your revised offer based on the valuation. If the vendor wants to chance his arm that another buyer's valuation will value it higher let them and walk away.

So offer £245 and only offer more for chattels if you genuinely want them and then make sure you pay a decent price - the value of second hand goods is pretty low.

Btw - old places tend to have poor insulation and I'd be getting that central heating put in as a priority - British winters are nothing like your Australian ones!!!

theartfullodger

captainpants wrote: »

perhaps theartfullodger but I'm not british!

re... S

urely the British way is to pay those taxes fairly due promptly & with good humour...

That's how we do things here, pay our taxes... And welcome to our country & our customs!

Cheers!

Artful

bris

You need to find an extra 25k on top of the deposit already required for a house only valued at 245k. You would have to be mad (no disrespect) to pay 25k over valuation in this climate, isn't it supposed to be the other way about?

captainpants

re stamp duty taxes - i was looking for a LEGAL loophole so it's not like i'm disrespecting the 'customs' here, just trying to catch a break having paid pretty much every other tax going. And Artful, I work for british lawyers who pull legal loopholes all the time to save their (mulitmillion pound) british clients money (amazing how many major UK business have billing addresses in Gibraltar) so I have been very welcomed to your country and your customs, thank you.

i don't want to pay over the odds but as I said, I'm a first time buyer so I am still trying to understand the way the market operates over here. I have rented for 17 years and it's hard to shake off the renter's mindset when going into a house transaction and therefore the valuation that is so much lower than the asking price in terms of thousands of dollars is a new thing for me to comprehend. I certainly wasn't expecting the valuation to be so low, particularly as the survey was not a harbinger of doom - (had it checked with an architect I know).

It's frustrating as I have received very little advice from people I know and it's been mediocre advice at that so this forum has been really great for widening my perspective on the whole valuation v offer issue. All your comments have been a great help so thank you very much.


I will definitely be going in with a lower offer. and might even look at central heating. But I do like the british winters. You have snow! I love snow!

housebuyer_abc

captainpants wrote: »

You have snow! I love snow!

We have slush - and occassionally maybe snow for 2-3 days - but in those days the roads seize up so you can't do anything with the snow