Transfer of equity

Helly18

Hi all please bear with me it's a bit of a long one.my mother passed away last year and I am executor of her will and The estate is more or less settled. My father and mother where both on the deeds and had a severance in place 50/50 split. All my mothers assets were to be split 3 ways between siblings. Following some good advice on her I found out that on my mother's death the house then belonged to my father although he had 50% equity.  My brother wanted to buy us siblings  out and have 50/50/share with my father. Everyone is in agreement and all perfectly amiable. I took legal advice and instructed a solicitor as the property is not registered with the land registry and I wanted to ensure transparency. 

The solicitor has drawn up a transfer of equity and now 3 months down has mentioned about stamp duty. My father owns his own house bought following their divorce and as part of the divorce the house was to be sold when my brothers were 18 but that didn't happen. My brother has/does not own another house.
Nothing has changed on my father's side and my brother has inherited a third of my mother equity.  Is stamp duty payable? Is it my fathers situation that is the issue? there are sufficient funds in the estate to allocate a 50 % house share to my brother and a greater cash share to my brother and myself if this would be better?
Obviously  I do have a solicitor who is seeking further clarification a point which doesn't fill me with great confidence at present.
Thanks H

Keep_pedalling

As a first time buyer your brother would only pay stamp duty if he is paying more then £300k for the 50% share, but as it seems he will actually inherit that share with the other siblings getting other assets there will be no stamp duty to pay.