Can I pay my own Stamp duty?

pauldeg

I have recently been told by my lawyer that I need to pay and additional 3% surcharge as I am in a relationship and my husband owns a property.  I am buying the house alone.  

As I had not expected this my husband is happy to gift me the 3%, £17,400 and the money is very clean.  The lawyers are now asking me to pay an additional £600.00 so they can do the paperwork on this, which is fair enough. 

My question is this, can I ask the lawyer to process the SDLT Paperwork which I am already paying for but let me pay the HMRC.  This would mean they dont have to have the Stamp Duty funds come through their account as I will pay HMRC Directly, so no requirement to check where the gift comes from and this saves me £600.00.  

Thanks in advance, 

MWT

Based on your other post, there is a mortgage lender involved in this transaction, so your solicitor is usually obliged to process the SDLT payment so they can warrant to the lender that it has been paid at the point of completion...

You should ask your solicitor of course, but I would expect the answer to be 'no'.

Snookie12cat

As you have a mortgage the answer is almost certainly no. I tried this for the same reason but they are obligated to have all the monies in behalf of the mortgage lender before completion.

user1977

pauldeg said:

The lawyers are now asking me to pay an additional £600.00 so they can do the paperwork on this, which is fair enough.

An additional fee is fair enough, but £600 merely to check the source of funds is extortionate.

Snookie12cat

My solicitor charged £100 which was annoying. It does seem excessive but I suppose they know they have you over a barrel.

MWT

Are there perhaps some costs in there for certified translations of documents not in English?

LRmortgage

£600!?!? 

That’s extortionate unless they’re doing something really special here!