Deconversion of a property, currently flats, into one house - Planning, Stamp Duty, Land Registry

rustysheriff

SDLT_Geek said:

rustysheriff said:

As others have said, stamp duty land tax looks at the number of "dwellings" you are buying (and any others you own).  Here you are buying two, so we would expect the extra 5% SDLT to apply to the price you pay.

Hi, thanks for the advice, seems to make sense but just to check, I would only pay the 5% SDLT on on of the flats? As one of the flats will count as a second home = presumably the cheapest if I can choose? Not on the purchase of the whole house?

The extra 5% SDLT, if it applies, would apply to the whole price.

Gulp! 5% on both??!! Is this because we are buying them together in the same transaction? If we were buying separately a day apart the 5% would surely only apply to the second flat - I'm shocked that it applies to both as only one of the flats would be a second property - we are selling our only other property to fund this purchase? I'm not sure I understand, any more info would be great. Thanks for your time on this 👍

sheramber

A transaction involving more than one dwelling will either be liable to the higher rates of tax or it won’t. The rules do not allow for a single transaction involving only residential property to be a combination of higher and normal residential rates.

Where more than one dwelling is purchased in a single transaction and one dwelling is worth at least two-thirds of the total transaction value, special rules may apply (See SDLTM09755)

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/stamp-duty-land-tax-manual/sdltm09766

SDLT_Geek

rustysheriff said:

SDLT_Geek said:

rustysheriff said:

As others have said, stamp duty land tax looks at the number of "dwellings" you are buying (and any others you own).  Here you are buying two, so we would expect the extra 5% SDLT to apply to the price you pay.

Hi, thanks for the advice, seems to make sense but just to check, I would only pay the 5% SDLT on on of the flats? As one of the flats will count as a second home = presumably the cheapest if I can choose? Not on the purchase of the whole house?

The extra 5% SDLT, if it applies, would apply to the whole price.

Gulp! 5% on both??!! Is this because we are buying them together in the same transaction? If we were buying separately a day apart the 5% would surely only apply to the second flat - I'm shocked that it applies to both as only one of the flats would be a second property - we are selling our only other property to fund this purchase? I'm not sure I understand, any more info would be great. Thanks for your time on this 👍

The guidance put up by @sheramber explains it well.

Yes, it is because you are buying two dwellings in one transaction.