Stamp Duty Land Tax/Subcharge

cahillg81

Evening all, a quick question as I am not finding the answer to easy to come by on the directgov.uk website.

If Mr Smith and Miss James are about to become Mr and Mrs Smith in April 2017 and both will be occupying Mr Smith's home and this becomes the marital home but he only is responsible for the upkeep on the mortgage.

Miss James owns her residential property just now and has consent to let on it but is planning on converting to a Buy To Let in August when she is out of her fixed rate.

What are the implications for the SDLT - this is a real situation and the clients have been advised differently by another advisor and solicitor.

Reading through the scenarios on the gov website I don't feel as comfortable answering the question as I thought i did initially as they will both own one home but because they would be treated as "one unit" when married would the additional sub charge apply on the remo or would it onlt apply on a purchase?

Thrugelmir

cahillg81 wrote: »

but he only is responsible for the upkeep on the mortgage.

Who is going to be named on the deeds of property. I assume that it's a new property not an existing one.

cahillg81

No new property or purchase both keeping residential. He will remain on his deeds she on hers.

So no new purchase.

Thrugelmir

Where does the SDLT liability arise from then?

cahillg81

Ha I didn't think there was any. But the client tells me that she was informed that on remortgaging her resi to a Buy to Let she has been told she could face a charge for the SDLT because when she is due to remo she will be married.

scottishblondie

I think there was an MSE article to that effect within the last couple of months and a couple of news outlets had similar, but the headline was a bit misleading. The SDLT would only become chargeable if there was a change in ownership, and the articles were suggesting (based on mostly anecdotal evidence I believe) that many lenders were not allowing people to remortgage as a single applicant when married and were forcing people to become joint owners instead. This could then result in SDLT being due. To my mind, it was a bit of scaremongering.

EDIT: Here is a link to the MSE article

amnblog

Low marks for Faye on this article. The majority of Lenders will let a married person remortgaging a property currently held in a single name to continue in a single name.

Hence no change of ownership. No change of ownership = no SDLT or LBTT