Stamp duty ... Gutted!

yoyoegg

OP, kick in the teeth for you.

It was in the Budget that the stamp duty was changing. A decent lawyer ought to have advised you if there was a way to complete before 6th Apr or at least kept the amount to pay on completion below £125k.

You know that tax you'll pay will be wasted on keeping the lifestyle idle like the Philpotts on easy street.

TDPIX

That's a pain. And very bad of your solicitor, since the change was announced 20th March 2013 - two and a half weeks ago. They could have given you more warning.

And I agree with the above that the solicitors should have tried to complete before today.

It sounds as though your solicitors dropped the ball and forgot to notify you?

Lord_Baltimore

The best thing you can do Katie is to forget it. Life is full of crummy things like this.

You have a new home to enjoy with your b/f and you are both young and healthy. You can't buy any of those things; money isn't everything .

Fire_Fox

katiep1990 wrote: »

We do have the extra £1400, I wouldn't call it spare, we were relying on that money to start furnishing our home. £1400 is a lot of money to a young couple. We did our research and made sure that everything would be affordable, this is just a big completely unexpected shock.

If money is that tight beg, borrow and raid charity shops/ Gumtree/ Freecycle/ eBay for furniture and save up for new in a year or two. No way do you need £1400 to 'start' furnishing your first house, you don't need to follow the herd.

You need a float in case one of you suddenly cannot work (redundancy, illness, injury, unplanned difficult pregnancy) it can and does happen. Support for Mortgage Interest does not kick in for three months and then only covers interest not capital so you would have to be able to fund the mortgage, insurances and the rest of your lifestyle until then.

Stamp duty was in the budget, not sure how you missed the change. Homeownership is full of hidden and seemingly 'unfair' costs, you always need a decent contingency fund.

reformedEffortmaker

Katie, I feel for you!.
I dont understand why everyone is expecting you to have read the budget. Why would you? Not everyone is as moneysavvy as the regular posters on here. If it makes you feel better, then I would agree with agrinnal and tell your solicitor youre not happy they didnt bring this to your attention sooner. Could you negotiate the fee you pay for their services? I know I will get shouted down for suggesting this, and whilst the solicitor cant really be held negligible, it would have been good customer service to bring it to your attention whilst you still had time to act!

Moving on, I think the advice from Fire Fox re: charity shops/ebay etc is spot and may be better at putting you in the right frame of mind for looking forward to your new home. Take you time and dont feel pressured to have everything looking 'show home ready' from day 1.

Tancred

katiep1990 wrote: »

Hi all,

My boyfriend and I are first time buyers, we exchanged conditional contracts a few month back for a new build due to complete end of this month. When signing contracts we spoke to our solicitor about stamp duty (our home is £136995, however is in a 'disadvantaged area' which according to HMRC is exempt from stamp duty) she agreed and advised that we do not have to pay it. So we have been saving all we can to get our 10% deposit (which has been difficult as we are both in early 20s, recently out of uni). We were told in an email(!!) from our solicitor a week ago that the HMRC have abolished the exception for stamp duty, so we will now have to come up wit £1369.95 extra on completion (as it is solicitors policy to collect stamp duty up front) luckily we have been saving a little extra than the basic, however we only have one pay day to go! We will just about manage to pay the basics but are now completely set back!

Anyone have any suggestions?/ Encountered a similar experience?

Soooo angry! Exciting/Happy time in our lives and this has seemed to spoil it all!

Katie
xxx

Consider yourself lucky that you don't have to pay 3% stamp duty. What is really unfair is the actual structure of stamp duty, which is charged on the whole amount, not merely on the amount above a given threshold.

Strapped

Fire_Fox wrote: »

If money is that tight beg, borrow and raid charity shops/ Gumtree/ Freecycle/ eBay for furniture and save up for new in a year or two. No way do you need £1400 to 'start' furnishing your first house, you don't need to follow the herd.

You need a float in case one of you suddenly cannot work (redundancy, illness, injury, unplanned difficult pregnancy) it can and does happen. Support for Mortgage Interest does not kick in for three months and then only covers interest not capital so you would have to be able to fund the mortgage, insurances and the rest of your lifestyle until then.

Stamp duty was in the budget, not sure how you missed the change. Homeownership is full of hidden and seemingly 'unfair' costs, you always need a decent contingency fund.

I agree. The only thing I bought when I moved in to my first house was a bed, because I really didn't fancy a second-hand mattress. But virtually everything else was free - it's amazing how many people wanted to get rid of bits of furniture, curtains, blankets etc. If you're happy with "functional" rather than "trendy" then you won't need that money OP.

seven-day-weekend

I have just bought some lovely stuff off e-Bay and found a lovely mirror in a charity shop, also William Morris curtains for £4 (and I've been married over forty years ). Pre-loved stuff is often better than new as you can afford better quality.

The tax is not unfair, it's just one of those things, once you have been married as long as I have you will have forgotten all about it. (Although I think the solicitor should have mentioned it earlier).

Enjoy your new home.

Flat_Eric

I look back with fondness and amusement to when we first moved into our house as things weren't perfect and it took a while to get things just so but I have fond memories.

I'm afraid I can't help with the stamp duty issue but I do feel for you. We paid stamp duty on our purchase and not long after it was abolished for first time buyers .... so we could have saved £1,000.00 plus but didn't.

Its just one of those things unfortunately and not ideal when everything relating to moving into your new home is expensive.

yorkshire_terrier_owner

When I bought my current property, I paid the stamp duty, then the week after they raised the threshold which would have meant if I had held off completion for a week I wouldn't have had to pay it. I had no way of knowing that at the time, and whilst I felt a bit aggrieved I moved on.

I furnished my house with hand me downs, stuff from second hand shops and cheap Argos stuff. It was great - I loved shopping about for a bargain! I bought a dining table and chairs which I still have now.

I am currently in the process of selling my house and purchasing a bigger one, and as money is tight, I will be making do with what I have, supplemented by cheap bargains from amazon and eBay until I can afford to buy better stuff.