Stamp Duty Land Tax Question

mamamoi

We are buying a house for £125 and are first time buyers. From what I can gather we still have to complete a from although we dont have to pay SDLT.

Is it usual for a solicitor to do this form or is it easy enough to do this myself? Our solicitor's secetary was quite shocked and said it was very unusual when we said we would do it ourselves (to save their £75 charge).

We are already registered with HMRC for self assesment if this makes it easier?

Thanks in advance

xylophone

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sdlt/return/intro.htm

kingstreet

Most decent solicitors include the completion of the stamp duty return in their fee, so attempting to take it away from them will save you nothing.

If you've found a solicitor making a separate charge, find one that doesn't!

Richard_Webster

If my client was getting a mortgage then if I use the mortgage money I have to be completely certain the the title will be registered at the Land registry. LR won't register without the clearance certificate for SDLT so if client fills form in wrongly and the certificate is not obtained I'm stuck so I make sure that I do it - but I don't charge extra for it.

Obviously if the solicitors are silly enough to suggest that it is an extra that you c n do then more fool them. They do that, of course, to suggest that their fees are lower than they really are.

Also, although they don't say so, I bet a lot of solicitors secretly hope that someone buying below the threshold thinks that this charge doesn't apply to them anyway so will discount it when deciding which solicitors to use!

mjdh1957

I presume the house actually costs £125,000 rather than the very cheap £125 outlined in the original post....