Extra 3% Stamp Duty ?

Ovidiu31

Hello, it is great to discover such a useful forum.
Could you please tell me if we will buy a house in UK (with a purchase price of £300,000), do we have to pay (in addition of the £5,000 regular Stamp Duty) the extra 3% Stamp Duty of the £9,000 (3% of the entire price) ?
- I am the owner (just me) of a flat, which is abroad.
- I am married and we live together now (since 2010) in a rented house in UK
Thank you very much in advance for any advice.

3card

Ovidiu31 wrote: »

Hello, it is great to discover such a useful forum.
Could you please tell me if we will buy a house in UK (with a purchase price of £300,000), do we have to pay (in addition of the £5,000 regular Stamp Duty) the extra 3% Stamp Duty of the £9,000 (3% of the entire price) ?
- I am the owner (just me) of a flat, which is abroad.
- I am married and we live together now (since 2010) in a rented house in UK
Thank you very much in advance for any advice.

If you scroll down the page on this link https://www.knightfrank.co.uk/buy-to-let-stamp-duty-calculator
you will see that it clearly states that the additional stamp duty will apply if you own a property abroad

AdrianC

If the foreign flat is worth more than £40k, then - yes - you'll have to pay +3% SDLT on this, your additional property.

You aren't selling your current primary residence, because you don't own it.

letitbe90

AdrianC wrote: »

If the foreign flat is worth more than £40k, then - yes - you'll have to pay +3% SDLT on this, your additional property.

You aren't selling your current primary residence, because you don't own it.

Out of curiosity, seeing as they do look at foreign properties when judging a FTB status, do HMRC/Land Registry have the ability to verify someone doesn't own a property outside of the UK?

AdrianC

They may, they may not. How lucky do you feel, when it comes to lying to the taxman?

letitbe90

AdrianC wrote: »

They may, they may not. How lucky do you feel, when it comes to lying to the taxman?

Lucky for me (or maybe not :rotfl:) I don't own any foreign property - I just find it strange when there are rules around things that can't be checked.

AnotherJoe

Ovidiu31 wrote: »

Hello, it is great to discover such a useful forum.
Could you please tell me if we will buy a house in UK (with a purchase price of £300,000), do we have to pay (in addition of the £5,000 regular Stamp Duty) the extra 3% Stamp Duty of the £9,000 (3% of the entire price) ?
- I am the owner (just me) of a flat, which is abroad.
- I am married and we live together now (since 2010) in a rented house in UK
Thank you very much in advance for any advice.

Yes, very clear cut.

AnotherJoe

letitbe90 wrote: »

Out of curiosity, seeing as they do look at foreign properties when judging a FTB status, do HMRC/Land Registry have the ability to verify someone doesn't own a property outside of the UK?

Is there any money trail from your bank to this property? Money going in for leases or maintenance? Money coming back for rentals? Do you advertise on airbnb or owners abroad or VRBO? Via a UK agency? They have computers trawling through all sorts of things

letitbe90

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Is there any money trail from your bank to this property? Money going in for leases or maintenance? Money coming back for rentals? Do you advertise on airbnb or owners abroad or VRBO? Via a UK agency? They have computers trawling through all sorts of things

Actually it isn't relevant to me as I don't own any properties - it was a hyophetical.

I do however doubt they have the powers to look at things at that detail (nor would they have the budget/staff to do that) without being able to request the statements themselves in the first place or if you had some sort of audit/investigation - I guess I just have an inkling they may not actually have a process at all to check if people own properties abroad due to the complexities and cost involved. I imagine some countries it is very difficult to even get information of property ownership (or can be forged/faked easily). Probably more hassle than it is worth for HMRC/LR, at least with UK properties it is a simple NI number/LR search that can reveal if you own things here.

davidmcn

letitbe90 wrote: »

I do however doubt they have the powers to look at things at that detail (nor would they have the budget/staff to do that) without being able to request the statements themselves in the first place or if you had some sort of audit/investigation - I guess I just have an inkling they may not actually have a process at all to check if people own properties abroad due to the complexities and cost involved. I imagine some countries it is very difficult to even get information of property ownership (or can be forged/faked easily).

Indeed, and it becomes even more unlikely in relation to the FTB relief as that's invalidated by the buyer ever having owned property anywhere on the planet in their lifetime. Even within the UK, how easy is it to verify whether you're the same John Smith who owned a property in the past, especially when your interest might not even have been registered.

AnotherJoe

letitbe90 wrote: »

Actually it isn't relevant to me as I don't own any properties - it was a hyophetical.

I do however doubt they have the powers to look at things at that detail (nor would they have the budget/staff to do that) without being able to request the statements themselves in the first place or if you had some sort of audit/investigation - I guess I just have an inkling they may not actually have a process at all to check if people own properties abroad due to the complexities and cost involved. I imagine some countries it is very difficult to even get information of property ownership (or can be forged/faked easily). Probably more hassle than it is worth for HMRC/LR, at least with UK properties it is a simple NI number/LR search that can reveal if you own things here.

It doesn't work that way where they immediately start looking at what you declared . It's like what they do for Ebay, Big Data systems that trawl though numerous sources of public data looking for matches and inconsistencies. .
Let's say that finds you advertising a holiday let in Majorca with no record of corresponding foreign income tax entries on your HMRC record. At that point some more detailed searches will take place to winnow down what's going on. Look also for any associated data such as s recent SDLT payments. And only then will a person look at it.
Odds are high if you don't let it out