Confused about stamp duty

bigpat

I owned a home with my ex-wife, but I have recently paid £155,000 to buy her share. We also have two buy-to-let flats, which we are keeping in joint names for now.

Online stamp duty calculators all ask whether this is a single property, an additional property or a buy-to-let. Bearing in mind that I already part-owned it, does this now count as an additional property? It's in England, in case the rules are different in Scotland.

bigpat

Sorry for not being clear. Do I have to pay stamp duty on my purchase of my former wife's share of the marital home?

When we divorced, we agreed a 60/40 split in her favour, but now I have paid her £155,000 for her 60%.

Does that count as an additional purchase for me?

bigpat

00ec25 wrote: »

again depends on when you divorced?

when divorcing and a court order establishes a split of the home then no SDLT is payable at all
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sdlt-transferring-ownership-of-land-or-property

if done after the divorce then the additional rate is not payable, but standard rate is since you are paying her for her share

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/stamp-duty-land-tax-manual/sdltm09814

Hmmm..... this still seems hard to pin down. We agreed the 60/40 split and yes this was submitted to the court as part of a financial order, and duly signed and sealed. The court order said, as per our original wishes, that the marital home would be sold and that we would split the proceeds 60/40. The divorce and financial order were dated last December.

However, we had a rethink afterwards and agreed that I'd buy her share, adhering to the 60/40 split as agreed and taking the average of three valuations. So with the home valued at £258k, her 60% came to £155k (give or take)

So the court agreed the split and I don't know if that's the same as saying that they established it

But given that we had divorced before completing this transaction, then it begins to look like the standard rate is payable. Is that how you interpret it?

SDLT_Geek

So the bad news first:
(a) The acquisition of the 60% share does not benefit from the full relief on divorce as it seems to have been agreed separately from the divorce.
(b) Because you are not married and living together at the time of your acquisition the exception from the 3% rate for transfers between spouses does not apply.
(c) The replacement exception is unlikely to apply because I do not expect you disposed of a previous home in the last three years.

The good news might be the exception from the 3% surcharge for people increasing their share in a property which they have lived in as their only or main residence throughout the previous three years. You will find out more about that here: https://www.blakemorgan.co.uk/sdlt-surcharge-changes-made-by-the-autumn-budget-on-22-november-2017/