Paying stamp duty

mjgreen60

Hi there

I'm due to complete on a house purchase in a couple of weeks and was wondering if I can pay stamp duty directly to hmrc rather than paying it to our solicitor for them to pass it on?

Also, on hmrc they say that you need you need a "unique taxpayer return number". Any ideas how I'd find this out?

Many thanks

Mj

giddypenguin

We were given the option by our solicitor to do it ourselves, and save the £50 admin fee. In the end we paid him to do it, as the form looked quite complicated (and us not knowing much about tax made it worse) we knew that if we mucked it up, it would cause all kinds of hassel in the chain, so didn't bother. So yes you can, but you have to understand what you're doing!

martinsurrey

You can still do stamp duty land tax on paper forms and cheques, look on HMRC website for form SDLT1 (you will have to get one from a large post office though).

To do it online you need to be registered, with a Gov Gateway key, and then register for SDLT online.

All in all, unless you know what your doing, its probably more hassle than its worth, if you don’t complete the payment within 30day you will get fined, and this time limit includes if you send the form in and they question anything!

kingstreet

If you need a mortgage, the lenders instructions to the solicitor acting for it will require you to hand all funds (purchase deposit and stamp duty) over to the solicitor in advance of completion.

AFAIK it's a requirement in the CML Handbook.

We were given the option by our solicitor to do it ourselves, and save the £50 admin fee

The better solicitors include this, and acting for mortgage lender, in their headline fee and don't make it look like a disbursement at the bottom of the quote.

mjgreen60

Looks like it may be more hassle than its worth!!

We had always planned to pay SD on credit card and that was fine last time we bought a house (same lender and only about 3 years ago). Our solicitors this time (different to previous) said now that they need to inform our mortgage provider and that it may cause some delay. They feel that the use of a credit card rather than paying in cash may be viewed as further "lending" that the mortgage company need to know about.

Does anyone know if any of this is true or are the solicitors wrong?

Many thanks

Mj

hazyjo

I'd agree with the solicitors. Lenders are very strict these days about where the money's coming from. Might as well have stuck some of the house deposit on a credit card and paid the final solicitor's bill in cash. They'd not have allowed that either, btw! It's the same thing. You have said you can afford it and have the money, so you have to stump up the cash. tbh, I can't think of anything worse - buying a house, then adding a few grand (or however much) to a credit card!

Jx

cpoir

kingstreet wrote: »

If you need a mortgage, the lenders instructions to the solicitor acting for it will require you to hand all funds (purchase deposit and stamp duty) over to the solicitor in advance of completion.

AFAIK it's a requirement in the CML Handbook.

I asked the same question this week and this is the same response that my solicitor gave - because we need a mortgage, the sale can't complete until we have paid the stamp duty via him

I was also hoping to pay via credit card as we don't get our shares until September...