Another Stamp Duty question - the house adjoining us

Thrugelmir

tree-peony wrote: »

Thanks Senior Paper Monitor. That was what I thought might be the situation. As it happens I may well move my Mum in to part of the property once the knock through is complete. I will report back if I get any news

Access alone doesn't make it a single property.

konark

Bloke near me wanted to turn two back-to-backs into one house. The council wouldn't let him.

Also buying two £x houses and knocking them together will nearly always result in the resulting house being worth less than £2x.

Ozzuk

My thoughts echo Konark, its very rare to make money on a house merge, you could easily be wiping 25% off the value typically. It's not impossible - I've looked at property to merge that you could raise the value but it depends on a lot of factors (price being the biggest). Thinking about it I did actually convert two flats back into a house once but I'm sure I lost money overall.

Also. do you need a mortgage? If so then you can likely forget the idea (unless you have no mortgage on your property). One other point, if you leave the second 'half' of property with a kitchen for your mother then you'll be paying two lots of council tax.

But equally if you are buying with cash, perhaps from sale of your mothers home to create a family unit then value may not matter to you as much.

One other thing that jumped into my mind - don't forget the utilities, it will cost you to merge them or the other option is paying for all separately.

AnotherJoe

It's a 3 year rule not 18 months is it not ?

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Ooops - sorry, mental aberration on my part (post amended) - moral of story: don't post when really concentrating on something else !

booksurr

tree-peony wrote: »

and yet granny flats are exempt!

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

What gives you that idea, if you were buying a granny flat you'd be just as liable to pay the extra SD.

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

I don't see anything in that article that suggests the OP wouldn't have to pay the extra SD if they purchased a granny flat rather that the house next door :cool:

The changes are clearly aimed at those selling an existing property then purchasing another which comes with an existing granny flat

you agree that tree-peony made a sweeping statement that all granny flats are exempt?

you likewise made a sweeping statement that they are not, yet have not defined what you mean by "granny flat" given your next response uses the same expression again

in all 3 posts the most common usage of the use of the words "granny flat" is taken to mean: a dwelling which forms part of another, whether that be an attached annex or a separate dwelling that (crucially) is within the same curtilage of the main property

I merely pointed out that the rules have been amended to make an exception in the circumstances described. If you read the article you will see that there is a 1/3 threshold below which a granny "flat" is indeed exempt and so you are not "just as liable".

If you are now claiming that "granny flat" refers to buying any property for a relative, then you should have made the distinction clear as tree-peony is obviously using the "annex" context. You are of course correct, in the case of a separate property (such as buying next door as proposed by OP), that is subject to higher rate SDLT, but it is not a "granny flat"