A solution for London?

Herzlos

Surely the better option is to avoid the loophole where you have a holdings company that owns the property, and then selling the company but not the property, thus not paying any stamp duty?

cells

Herzlos wrote: »

Surely the better option is to avoid the loophole where you have a holdings company that owns the property, and then selling the company but not the property, thus not paying any stamp duty?

there is an annual tax on such companies called the Annual Tax on Enveloped Dwellings.

For properties worth £10m-£20m the tax is an annual £109,050
For properties worth £1m-£2m the tax is an annual £7,000

Herzlos

Considering stamp duty on a £20m house is £2,313,75 and a £2m house is £153,750, it still seems to be the cheaper option if you're not planning on keeping the property for more than 20 years.

How is the worth calculated anyway?

cells

Herzlos wrote: »

Considering stamp duty on a £20m house is £2,313,75 and a £2m house is £153,750, it still seems to be the cheaper option if you're not planning on keeping the property for more than 20 years.

How is the worth calculated anyway?

the company pays the stamp duty at the beginning too. it then pays the annual tax annually

So if there is a £20 million property and you want to buy it in a company you will pay £2.9 million in stamp duty and then £109k annually on the ATED tax.

If you sell the shares you will also have to pay the 0.5% share stamp duty. If the company sells the property it will have to pay CGT while if a person owned it they get primary residence relief


The average house transacts once every 25 years. Or to put it another way there is about 1 million non-new-build transactions a year and about 25 million non social homes which means homes are on average transacted about once every 25 years.