Who should inform you about stamp duty?

00ec25

Hannahkah19 wrote: »

Yes we have and they’ve told us we aren’t exempt. They also believe we should have been told about this by the FA

and the reason is.... ?

what was in the written contract / terms of agreement you had with the FA defining the services you were paying that person for since you had already researched the rest?

FA are qualified to offer advice on investments, they are not life coaches, nor are they tax experts.
The solicitor is the person responsible for SDLT, if anyone's job to advise on that it is theirs - which it seems they have now done. (Although how accurately seems moot at the moment.)

bris

Seriously you have never heard of stamp duty before? This isn't a FA's responsibility , the solicitor is the one who deals with this.


It's such a huge part of buying a house that the FA is probably bemused by your lack of understanding the very basic costs involved and would have believed you had that part covered.

ellielw

The stamp duty relief for FTBs was introduced part way through my conveyancing process (best budget news I ever saw!) and I had to flag to my solicitor that this news would impact me. They had me sign a declaration stating that I was a first time buyer and then did whatever it was that they had to do to claim the relief.

If both of you are first time buyers then you are 100% entitled to not pay stamp duty on a property that's £290k, so really push this with your solicitors.

Prothet_of_Doom

I've got a spreadsheet, monthly for 20 years that I put in all the estimated costs of every house that we considered, and how much it was going to cost us to get through the door, and how much the council tax and bills would be, and also how much the mortgage would be at different interest rates.

The house we are buying is a second home.

Deposit 25% £44K
Stamp Duty =(B2*0.03)+((B2-125000)*0.025) where B2 is the purchase price £6500
Solicitor £1000 (it's a little less than that but that's what I budgetted
Fees to take out loan £188 (includes valuation)
Separate Full structural Survey (It's a 160 year old house) £750
Furniture £2K (This is a budget - my wife can spend for Great Britain, but we don't have any more spare, so initially, we are going to have to use guntree and facebook market place, but will need 2 new double mattresses and I think that will be at least 1/3 of the budget)
Bedding and Kitchen Equipment £200 (We have listed what we have spare, in our family home, so we know what we need)

Hannahkah19

bris wrote: »

Seriously you have never heard of stamp duty before? This isn't a FA's responsibility , the solicitor is the one who deals with this.


It's such a huge part of buying a house that the FA is probably bemused by your lack of understanding the very basic costs involved and would have believed you had that part covered.

Once again thanks for the unhelpful patronising comment. Yes of course we have heard of stamp duty and every thing we have read has told us as first time buyers we are exempt. The loop hole being that we live in Wales and they got rid of stamp duty last year and replaced it with a land tax which has been extremely unpublicised. I am not disputing the fact that it needs to be paid, what I am disputing is that our first points of contact were the builders sales team and the FA we were told we had to use to be qualified to by a house. On the FA'S website it states not that they are mortgage advisers solely but they are specialists in financial guidance for new build homes, guiding you through every step of the process and costs of buying a property amongst a whole array of other services. So if that is the case how can they leave out one massive cost such as a tax which is not very well heard of. I categorically do not agree that it's not part of a FINANCIAL ADVISERS role to relay all costs associated with a house purchase to help you make an informed decision. The solicitor is there to sort all the paper work and yes deals with the transfer of funds but you don't actually instruct them until after you have handed over money to reserve a plot and have been qualified to purchase. I'm not talking about an adviser who just looks at a mortgage deal for you, it's an adviser who would deal with your pensions, investments, property purchasing etc. Also when in the sales office we asked the question regarding stamp duty on the property and were told there is no stamp duty now in Wales. Yet they failed to also say it had been replaced by a different tax.

Hannahkah19

allconnected wrote: »

And why did the solicitor say you didn’t qualify for first time buyers relief?

Presumably they explained why as first time buyers you weren’t entitled to this?

All connected

Stamp duty was stopped in Wales last year and then replaced by a land tax - surprise surprise it wasn't very well publicised!

Hannahkah19

SmashedAvacado wrote: »

You paid them to find you a mortgage.

No I didn't. Quite capable of doing that myself thanks. I paid them to give me advise on purchasing this property. I didn't go with them because I wanted to - it was a pre-requisite from the build to be able to reserve the property. They are a financial adviser who offer a number of services not just mortgages. Obviously they just get to chose what they advise on and what they don't!

Hannahkah19

Skibunny40 wrote: »

Did you have to pay for this affordability test?
I must admit, I would have expected a FA to talk me through ALL the costs associated with buying a house, inc. stuff like taxes and fees - did they mention the cost of solicitors fees etc?

I asked him to go through in detail all the fees attached to the mortgage / valuations etc and when they needed to paid. We went through our deposit amount and how much we had in our First time buyer ISA and I said I had budgeted about £1500 for the solicitors fees. I then asked if there were any other costs we needed to be aware of on this purchase. He replied NO. When the tax appeared on the bill with the solicitor and I queried it they said the FA should have gone through all of this with us before hand. We also asked the Sales Rep as a double check about stamp duty on the property and she told us it doesn't exist in Wales anymore - she failed to add that it had been replaced by a different tax that you are only exempt from if your property cost under £180k.

davidmcn

Hannahkah19 wrote: »

The solicitor is there to sort all the paper work and yes deals with the transfer of funds but you don't actually instruct them until after you have handed over money to reserve a plot

While it unfortunately seems to be commonplace for people in England & Wales not to contact a solicitor until relatively late in the transaction, there's nothing stopping you from seeking advice at an earlier stage - even asking for a general fee quote ought to have flushed out a rough idea of your LTT liability.

The main job of the builders' sales team is to flog houses - and much the same goes for their attached financial advisers. I wouldn't be relying on tax "advice" from either.

Hannahkah19

davidmcn wrote: »

While it unfortunately seems to be commonplace for people in England & Wales not to contact a solicitor until relatively late in the transaction, there's nothing stopping you from seeking advice at an earlier stage - even asking for a general fee quote ought to have flushed out a rough idea of your LTT liability.

The main job of the builders' sales team is to flog houses - and much the same goes for their attached financial advisers. I wouldn't be relying on tax "advice" from either.

Definitely a lesson learned for us and in hindsight yes we should have - it's just very frustrating that we asked both parties about it and now feel like it was sort of purposely left out. With such a big purpose it would be nice if there was complete transparency. When stamp duty was a huge deal they wouldn't hesitate to advertise paying for it as an incentive and when queried after the fact the sales office definitely knew all about it and were very quick to say the FA should have gone through all costs with us prior to us reserving.