Solicitors saying 11k Stamp Duty... Help.

RGun

Hi all.

I am a 31 year old looking to purchase a property.

I contact The Post Office who work in association with RBOI and asked for a mortgage on a £273k property.

I applied for the "First Start" mortgage with my mother also willing to go onto the morgage as somebody to help me.

I will be responsible for the mortgage, and if for whatever reason I am unable to pay, The Royal Bank of Ireland will then go to my mother for the repayments. My mother has stated she does not want to go on the deeds of the property and only wants to help with the mortgage. I explained this to the mortgage lenders and they too were happy with only my mother being on the mortgage and not the deeds.

Perfect, I was absolutly fine with that.

I then found some solicitors near to where I live and I explained everything to them, and they started working for me to help me legally with the purchase.

I received an email from the solicitors yesterday after they did searches on the property and also gave me information on the local Water and Drainage/Electrical History/NICEIC Certificates etc etc... One thing I noticed under the "Report on Title" attachment it has:

Stamp Duty
£11,840.00 as per the attached calculation is payable to the Inland Revenue on
completion. Please note that we must be in receipt these funds prior to completion.

I phoned my solicitors and I explained there must be an error because this is my first property and that my mother did not want to be on the deeds, she doesn't want to have ownership on the home and only wants to help with the mortgage if need be. (Sort of like a guarantor)

However, the solicitor said it has to be £11,840 because she will have to register both myself and my mother as the owners of the property to the Land Registry - and because my mother already owns a property it will be the higher rate. I said my mother doesn't want ownership and my solicitor said legally she will have to be registered as the owner?!?!

Can anyone help/advise us here. £12,000 is far too much and my mother doesn't want to be on the deeds whatever happens.

foxy-stoat

By the looks of it there is an option to be a joint owner - best query that with the Post Office and confirm with the solicitors.

Splatfoot

Not sure where the solicitor even got that figure from. Even if you weren't a FTB, the stamp duty would only be £3,650... Sorry, I know that's not much help but those figures seem way too high.

foxy-stoat

£3650 is stamp duty plus the other £8,190 for a buying a second home. Gotta love the HMRC for coming up with that one !

RGun

I literally just got off the phone to the Post Office, explained what the solicitors have advised and they have informed me that they are happy that I myself have sole ownership.

SDLT_Geek

Hopefully the mortgage you have is a "joint borrower sole proprietor" type. That means that although your mother is responsible with you for payment of the mortgage, she is to have no share whatsoever of the property. On that basis you are the sole "purchaser" of the property for stamp duty land tax purposes and so her property owning status should not adversely affect your SDLT position. There is an article about it here: https://www.taxadvisermagazine.com/article/additional-properties

RGun

SDLT_Geek wrote: »

Hopefully the mortgage you have is a "joint borrower sole proprietor" type. That means that although your mother is responsible with you for payment of the mortgage, she is to have no share whatsoever of the property.

I phoned the post office and I asked this and they said they were happy with myself being the sole owner and myself and mother being on the mortgage.

When my mother spoke with the post office during our initial call my mother mentioned a good number of times that she did not want to be on the deeds and they were fine with that.

I just don't understand how my solicitor can now tell me that she does legally have to go on the ownership - Could she have made an error?

Should we seek advice elsewhere through another solicitor?

silvercar

Seems your solicitor has made an error or not understood. No need to start again with a new solicitor, explain the error to them.

davidmcn

silvercar wrote: »

Seems your solicitor has made an error or not understood. No need to start again with a new solicitor, explain the error to them.

May wish to take the opportunity to gently explain to them that "the Inland Revenue" hasn't been around for 14 years...

Thrugelmir

RGun wrote: »

I just don't understand how my solicitor can now tell me that she does legally have to go on the ownership - Could she have made an error?

?

Is your mother providing some of the deposit?

RGun

SDLT_Geek wrote: »

Hopefully the mortgage you have is a "joint borrower sole proprietor" type. That means that although your mother is responsible with you for payment of the mortgage, she is to have no share whatsoever of the property. On that basis you are the sole "purchaser" of the property for stamp duty land tax purposes and so her property owning status should not adversely affect your SDLT position. There is an article about it here: https://www.taxadvisermagazine.com/article/additional-properties

My error - I was supposed to type The Land Registry*