Stamp duty reclaim legit?

nickiBlue

I’ve received a letter from a company called SDR Specialists Ltd. Saying I may be eligible for a Land Tax refund due to the house I bought having a self contained annexe. It’s on a no win no fee basis. Has anyone used this company or have any experience of reclaiming this land tax at all? 

steampowered

These companies usually work as follows:

 - File a fraudulent tax reclaim on your behalf
- Keep a massive fee
- Leave you holding the baby when HMRC comes for its money back plus penalties and interest

penners324

Scam, avoid them 

stig

The company are suggesting that you might have bought two separate “dwellings” for SDLT purposes and so could have claimed multiple dwellings relief, splitting the value between the two and working out the SDLT separately. This often works out cheaper, especially if the self contained annex is relatively small and benefits from an exemption from the ‘second home’ rate of SDLT.

However, this type of company simply blanket target anyone  who has bought a property which ‘might’ have a separate residence, for example targeting houses with detached garages, charging a substantial percentage of the refund to make a claim and leaving the purchaser in the lurch if and when HMRC challenge the claim and ask for the refund back.

if you genuinely bought two distinct dwellings (all separate facilities, utilities,  access, etc) suitable for two separate households to live in (whether they do or not isn’t relevant) AND it’s less than 12 months since you paid the  SDLT, then it might be worth looking up Multiple Dwellings Relief SDLT and seeing if you would benefit from making a claim. Some conveyancers do miss this. 

If you didn’t, then ignore it - someone has just looked at your house on a list of recently sold property and thought it was worth trying it on!