Seller pays stamp duty - can we do this?

Yorkie1

I think your seller is naive to expect to get an offer at £255K rather than £250K.

At £250K the buyer is paying out £250K + £2500 stamp duty = £252500.

At £255K the buyer is paying out £255K + £7650 stamp duty = £262650. In other words, the increase in purchase price of £5K means the buyer is actually shelling out £10150 more.

To be honest, I'd be minded to sit tight at £250K. Your solicitor is right to advise against playing around with the F&F value.

betti911

Found this thread really interesting. We recently put in an offer for 250k which was rejected then the seller since said they would accept 260k but pay half the stamp duty. We refused as it didn't make sense. Seller wouldn't actually make that much money (approx 6k) but we would pay 13k extra. Seller wouldn't negotiate any further. Didn't realise we wouldn't be allowed to accept this by our mortgage company.

Annisele

Bigglesuk wrote: »

Vendor is offering the stamp duty as a gift. They would not accept £250k with me paying stamp duty, as they were looking to come away with £255k. They did accept my conditional offer of £263k based on the fact I could obtain a mortgage that accepted the gifted stamp duty. 2 weeks of daily phone calls later and I’m no closer to finding one that works. I may have to re-negotiate with the vendor, but my solicitors recommended not attempting the fixtures and fittings approach at the 250k mark as that has been cracked down a lot.

The vendor is not offering the stamp duty as a gift. Gifts are given without obligation, out of love and affection (or out of duty, but let's not go there). Gifts aren't given in the expectation you'll buy the donor's house.

I don't think you're going to find a lender prepared to accept the gifted stamp duty - and I think it's extremely unlikely a vendor is going to find anyone who'll pay them £255k.

In your shoes, I'd revise my offer and tell the vendor my offer was £250k only.

MrParsons

As a buyer who is looking at a property which is currently listed at £280k (Newbuild) I completely agree with the notion that you're being screwed by the stamp duty. I could afford £265k however the stamp duty puts pay to that as I simply cannot afford the lump sum payment. I think any house between £280k and £250k is going to struggle to sell because the total costs when adding the stamp duty on does not give value for money to the buyer. I think people can stomach £2500 tax at £250k but when your looking at £280 that jumps by nearly £10k!

In my new build negotiations I have stated that £250k is my maximum offer due to the stamp duty problem. They are now seriously considering my offer.