Selling two deeds separately?

Nerra

Hi everyone

I'm looking to buy a house for £265k. The sale comes with two deeds, one is for the house and the other is for a long driveway leading up to the house.

Does anyone know if its possible for the vendor to sell the deeds separately?

My thinking is that we could buy the house for 250k and then my parents could 'buy' the driveway for 15k which would save me the 3% stamp duty. I'm a FTB so I would literally be saving 3%.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Catti

No - these would be regarded as linked transactions and would therefore attract the full SDLT.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sdlt/calculate/linked-transfers.htm

RabbitMad

If the house comes with a right of way over the driveway then I think you could do this but you would need to use seperate solicitors for each purchase and persuade the vendors to do likewise (and probably pay their convenyencing costs on the drive sale.
It could be classed as a linked transaction and HMRC if they found out probably would class it as such.
Given the amount you will save is it worth the risk though?

tamarto

edited cos i was being dumb.

Nerra

Thanks Catti.

I wondered if we could get round it by my parents buying the drive way but it wouldn't fly according to that link you provided.

Meaning of 'connected people'
Two or more transactions can be connected if they involve the same buyer and seller - or someone who's connected to them.
The definition of a connected person is quite broad. For example, it could be a relative like a brother or sister, a parent or a grandparent. Or it could be a husband, wife or civil partner - or perhaps one of their relatives. If the buyer or seller is a business, a connected person would include business partners and their relatives. It also includes companies and groups of companies who are connected to the business.

poppysarah

Nerra wrote: »

Hi everyone

I'm looking to buy a house for £265k. .

Look to buy it for 250k or less.

Nerra

poppysarah wrote: »

Look to buy it for 250k or less.

Easier said than done. The seller is has already come down a considerable amount (around 20%) and so £265 seems to be absolute rock bottom.

poppysarah

Nerra wrote: »

Easier said than done. The seller is has already come down a considerable amount (around 20%) and so £265 seems to be absolute rock bottom.

Well no one else will want to pay stamp duty either.

G_M

Does the house have a right of way across the drive?

Buy the house only.

Buy the drive next year.

Richard_Webster

You have to look at the reality of the situation. Would the seller really sell the driveway to an entirely unrelated third party? No, he wouldn't because it would devalue the house. So the transactions must be linked.

If someone owned two houses and had them both on the market and OP agreed to buy both but the seller was equally happy to sell them separately to unconnected people for the same prices then they could be treated as two separate transactions.

CloudCuckooLand

If you started your house search planning to avoid paying SDLT, you should not have looked at a house on for £330k...

20% off is damn good. £66k off ? If you'd only managed to get 10% off, you'd presumably be happy to pay SDLT being further away from the threshold ?

Just because it has now fallen into closer proximity does not mean you should not buy the place because of SDLT.

3% of a lower figure is still a 'saving'. You have reduced your SDLT bill by £1980-ish.

There's being MSE and there's being over-ambitious.