Stamp duty

[sringinthestep]

Wondering if anyone can help me with a stamp duty question.

Situation is dp own a owns a property which he rents out. He also owns one with me, we are separating, Im buying him out, he is being taken off the deeds of this shared property. He is purchasing a new property. After researching stamp duty I can not work out if he will have the larger amount of stamp duty to pay (around £5000), or the lesser amount of around £400. We have used the stamp duty calculator on Gov website, but not sure if him being taken off the deeds is classed as the same as us selling the house.

Can anyone please help?
Thanks

[lalalonglegs]

He owns a BTL property so he will pay higher rate stamp duty.

[Pootlebug]

What previous poster said. Irrespective of your joint place he already owns a property so will pay the higher rate

[Cavort]

If he is replacing one home with another home he shouldn't have to pay it. The higher rate is only payable on investment properties. My DH didn't have to pay it when buying a house with me even though he owned another property.

[Japanesejazz]

He will pay higher rate unless the property he is purchasing is less than £40k.

[WhatsGoingOnEh]

Do you mean Capital Gains Tax? Stamp Duty is the tax you pay when you're buying a house, not selling one.

[TheCraicDealer]

DH has a BTL he'd never lived in (he was in work accomodation) and when we bought our place together we had to pay higher rate. I pointed out to our solicitor that as we didn't have a primary residence to replace surely we'd be only paying lower rate as this would be our home, but he wasn't having any of it. Said we have a house between us, we're buying another in addition, therefore we had to pay.

DH and I actually totally agree with the higher rate policy on second properties, but just sucks when you actually have to pay it!

[Scoogle]

OP. If you ring HMRC. They will go through it with you. Also HMRC have published a guide on this , with examples for every scenario. I think from what you're saying that no he won't be liable for second rate as he is replacing main dwelling but if you speak to HMRC they will help

Also to the poster who said they paid higher rate on the advice of their solicitor. I would definitely check that. If you have a rented that you haven't lived in, then higher rate would not be applicable.

[TheCraicDealer]

I'm going to ring HMRC on your advice Scoogle. I wasn't too happy with the lack of research he appeared to do but they're a very reputable firm so trusted what he said. Worth a phone call.

[Scoogle]

I'm a conveyancing solicitor. I always tend to ring if I'm not 100% sure. I've had some situations similar to yours where it wasn't applicable. However every situation is different. When you do ring I would not say you've already paid it but that you're ringing to ask about a future purchase. Good luck x

[TheCraicDealer]

I called! Did not get through to the actual helpline but the man who I spoke to said "to his knowledge" that as we hadn't disposed of an asset we'd still be liable to pay. I suppose from their point of view we had a property we could live in but "chose" to buy an additional house instead.

From memory our solicitor said it's all to do with maintaining the number of properties you had before the date the higer rates came in- so before whatever date it was we had one house between us (ie stupid BTL 250 miles away), then we bought another after the HR introduction = higher rate. I might still write to them for clarification as it seems a bit unfair in cases where one partner had nothing to do with the let property and their was no main residence to replace.

Ah well! Was worth a punt. Hopefully works out better for OP's stbex.

[sringinthestep]

Thanks all for the replies, much appreciated. Solicitor has finally replied and said he wont need to pay the higher fee

[anxious62]

He’s replacing one PPR with another so won’t pay ADS.