First time buyer stamp duty

Mard1980

Hi me and my wife are in the middle of buying a house. This is my first time buying a house. My wife had a house with her ex husband over 10 years ago but she dosnt know if she was a first time buyer or not. We have a help to buy isa each as well but we don't want to get into trouble if she is not a first time buyer. Does anyone know what would be the worst case if it turned out she was not a first time buyer and we said she was with regards to the stanp duty and the first time buyer help to buy isa 

eskbanker

If she had a house with her ex husband then she is ineligible for the HTB ISA scheme and so will already have made a fraudulent declaration when opening the account, and would exacerbate this by doing so again if trying to claim a bonus from the government under false pretences.

Mard1980

the thing is she doesn't know if her name was on the mortgage or not. she cant remember if she signed any paperwork to say she owned the house with him. we have looked at her credit report and there is nothing about a mortgage on there but it was over 10 years ago   

eskbanker

Mard1980 said:

the thing is she doesn't know if her name was on the mortgage or not. she cant remember if she signed any paperwork to say she owned the house with him. we have looked at her credit report and there is nothing about a mortgage on there but it was over 10 years ago   

It's not just about the mortgage though - even if she wasn't on that, she may have been on the title deeds of the house, but presumably there will have been a financial settlement when divorcing, so the marital home should have formed part of that, even if it was only registered in her ex-husband's name?

Alexland

It baffles me how anyone is unclear on if they owned their house but you could search the land registry.
https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/search-the-register
"You may be able to find out who owned the property before the current owner from a historical title register. It can also be useful if you’re trying to find out how old a property is. Ask HM Land Registry to search who owned the property for a specific date or multiple dates."

Mard1980

Alexland said:

It baffles me how anyone is unclear on if they owned their house but you could search the land registry.
https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/search-the-register
"You may be able to find out who owned the property before the current owner from a historical title register. It can also be useful if you’re trying to find out how old a property is. Ask HM Land Registry to search who owned the property for a specific date or multiple dates."

she had a home with her ex husband about 10 years ago but she cant remember if it was just in his name or if it was in both of there names as he did all the paperwork and she cant remember signing anything only the divorce papers   

Alexland

Mard1980 said:

she had a home with her ex husband about 10 years ago but she cant remember if it was just in his name or if it was in both of there names as he did all the paperwork and she cant remember signing anything only the divorce papers   

Well the land registry search should confirm either way and would probably be the main source HMRC would check if they had concerns about the HTB ISA bonus claim.