Stamp duty when owning more than one property

Jet

Can someone check my understanding of the stamp duty rules please?

If you buy a house whilst owning other residential properties, you pay the additional stamp duty rate?

However, if you sell your main residence whilst also owning additional property and buy a new main residence you will not have to pay the addtitional stamp duty? I understand that if you don't complete the sale and purchse on the same day, you may have to pay the additional stamp duty and then claim it back.

I want to let out my main residence and sell my other property but I think this is going to land me with a big SDLT bill. Or would I have that bill anyway simply because I own more than 1 residential property?

Thanks.

SDLT_Geek

Jet said:

Can someone check my understanding of the stamp duty rules please?

If you buy a house whilst owning other residential properties, you pay the additional stamp duty rate?
Yes, sometimes, it depends on whether you meet the conditions for "replacing" your main residence, which usually requires that you sell a previous home.

However, if you sell your main residence whilst also owning additional property and buy a new main residence you will not have to pay the addtitional stamp duty?
Yes, that is usually right.
I understand that if you don't complete the sale and purchse on the same day, you may have to pay the additional stamp duty and then claim it back.
If the sale of the previous home completes after the purchase of the new home, then usually the extra 5% is payable on the purchase, but recoverable when the previous home is sold.

I want to let out my main residence and sell my other property but I think this is going to land me with a big SDLT bill.
Yes, that sounds likely.  Unless perhaps if you had lived in your "other property" as your only or main residence at some point in the last three years.
 Or would I have that bill anyway simply because I own more than 1 residential property?
People owning several properties can be saved by the "replacement" rules.
Thanks.

Would you be buying in England, so that the relevant stamp duty is stamp duty land tax and the extra, for additional properties, is 5%?

If so, see the annotations above, in bold.

There is HMRC guidance on the replacement rules here: https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/stamp-duty-land-tax-manual/sdltm09800