MSE News: Urgent stamp duty rebate - are you due up to £1,500?

noodles77

Got a lovely cheque this morning for £1332.84 (including £12.84 interest). Brilliant result thank you MSE.
Now need to peruse my solicitors for their rubbish advice. I queried the stamp duty twice when buying our house as I believed we shouldn't have paid it, however got the same reply twice from them that certain parts of our ward were not exempt! I shall be persuing them for the £60 fee related to the SDLT transaction plus the two registered post letters to the HMRC for this rebate and two hours of my time.
Brilliant advice from MSE though, hope more of you get a rebate.

teabelly

That's excellent! When did you buy? I've not had any response to my last letter of 2 weeks ago. I need to chase them.

Hopefully it means I'll be getting a cheque as well

littlebluebird

I've had no response so sent follow up letter. Hope to hear something soon then.
Noodles77, glad you got somewhere, at least it means they are paying out!

As for the time limit, the standard line is 2 years I believe but this was exceptional circumstances so time is different.

I purchased so long ago that solicitors have no record either. I have some of mine but not necessarily all. I don't know what to do if it is rejected. I would have thought that owning a relevant property during that time can be proved with land registry but how do you prove what you paid? Just in anticipation!

teabelly

What you paid will be in the land registry information. If you can find your property on the rightmove it will have the sold price too.

I'd pop onto the land registry and get the title document which will have a line about the price paid and when it was paid. Think they're about £3/£4 to download. That should be reasonable proof.

noodles77

teabelly wrote: »

That's excellent! When did you buy? I've not had any response to my last letter of 2 weeks ago. I need to chase them.

Hopefully it means I'll be getting a cheque as well

We bought on 1st June 2012. Hopefully you should hear soon, they got my second letter with the further info they requested on 8th May so looks like around 3 weeks for a pay out. Good luck

noodles77

littlebluebird wrote: »

I've had no response so sent follow up letter. Hope to hear something soon then.
Noodles77, glad you got somewhere, at least it means they are paying out!

As for the time limit, the standard line is 2 years I believe but this was exceptional circumstances so time is different.

I purchased so long ago that solicitors have no record either. I have some of mine but not necessarily all. I don't know what to do if it is rejected. I would have thought that owning a relevant property during that time can be proved with land registry but how do you prove what you paid? Just in anticipation!

We purchased 1st June 2012 so was within the 2 years if this is relevant. Also sent my letters tracked and signed for so I had proof they received them.
I would of thought that you had some recompense with your solicitor if they gave you bad advice?

teabelly

I bought mine in 2008 :-/

littlebluebird

Ahh, Noodles77, probably not that helpful then as mine was 2005!
Teabelly, thanks. I was thinking about how I prove I paid the stamp duty really as that was a separate payment made to the solicitor who conveniently doesn't have any record now! I do have proof they asked me for it though so hoping that's enough as I have bank records to tie in with the amount -somewhere ☺

noodles77

I think they should pay out, it's exceptional circumstances and they would chase you outside this timescale if you had underpaid.

Let me know how you get on and good luck.

sanfran1

We're going to write a letter referring to these 'exceptional circumstances' (we purchased our house 10 years ago).
Before we sent our initial letter my husband spoke to at least 3 different HMRC advisors and none of them mentioned anything about a 2 year post-purchase time limit.
I think it's worth pushing them some more. At the very least they will need to reply to us and explain why they are disregarding these exceptional circumstances.
I'm glad to hear some people are being successful and getting refunds.