Shared ownership - staircasing- stamp duty holiday

Lilmsp

Hi All,
I’m trying to wrap my head around sharedownership’s stamp duty, which is always a minefield, and trying to work out what to do should the stamp duty holiday get extended.

I own 50% of my current home and elected to not pay stamp duty in full up front. My understanding is that if I staircase, I don’t pay any stamp duty unless this transaction takes my ownership to over 80%. 

Let’s assume that the property value is 600k.

If I were to staircase to 75%, no stamp duty is paid but if I then buy the next 25%, the stamp duty is paid on this 25% as well as the previous 25%?

My next question is, stamp duty is payable for transaction that pushes me over so if I were to staircase to 85%, I’d have to pay stamp duty for the extra 35%, but what about the remaining 15%? Is it only payable if the 15% is valued over 125k?

Last question, in the case stamp duty holiday get extended, if I were to staircase to 85%, does that mean no stamp duty is payable? And again, 0 if the 15% is less than 125k?

I would really appreciate if someone could help with these. 

thanks very much

SDLT_Geek

Lilmsp said:

Hi All,
I’m trying to wrap my head around sharedownership’s stamp duty, which is always a minefield, and trying to work out what to do should the stamp duty holiday get extended.

I own 50% of my current home and elected to not pay stamp duty in full up front. My understanding is that if I staircase, I don’t pay any stamp duty unless this transaction takes my ownership to over 80%. 
Correct.

Let’s assume that the property value is 600k.

If I were to staircase to 75%, no stamp duty is paid but if I then buy the next 25%, the stamp duty is paid on this 25% as well as the previous 25%?
SDLT is due on the last 25% but calculated in a complicated way which takes account of all the payments made.

My next question is, stamp duty is payable for transaction that pushes me over so if I were to staircase to 85%, I’d have to pay stamp duty for the extra 35%, but what about the remaining 15%? Is it only payable if the 15% is valued over 125k?
If you first staircase to 85% then a SDLT could be due on that, though it might be low or none in the holiday.  
If later you acquire the last 15% then SDLT could be due on the payment for that.  It would be calculated taking into account the other payments.

Last question, in the case stamp duty holiday get extended, if I were to staircase to 85%, does that mean no stamp duty is payable? And again, 0 if the 15% is less than 125k?
There would usually be no SDLT if all of the payments made total less than £500,000.  The relevant payments are often the amount paid to the RSL for the grant of the lease and all the staircasing payments.
I would really appreciate if someone could help with these. 

thanks very much

See the notes above.