Angela Rayner tax fail

[Iwishicouldflyhigh]

But it’s ok because she was just badly advised.
I’ll remember that excuse next time I fill in my tax return.

But still confused about one can have 2 main homes?

Wouldn’t it be published in which case Verrico can come out fighting

I think she’s messed up even more by lying re the advice

They have set the whole thing up so that she can move out of the marital home and buy somewhere else without losing the adapted home for the child. All sounds good so far. But are we expected to believe she did not think that Stamp duty would be an issue here and therefore make sure it was iron clad the answer to what was due? Of course she should have but she has turned a blind eye on the hope everyone else will.

Also I think it’s morally questionable to sell the 25% and take her disabled sons money. It’s for her benefit not his as she could just have gifted him her 25% share and bought a smaller house somewhere in her constituency and closer to children. It’s all very morally suspect even if all legal.

As conveyancers they just sort out buying and selling contracts. They would not have Trust and tax advisors. They are not Trust solicitors. They are simply conveyancers. They will have invoiced her for their work so it will be clear from invoices. No one gives tax and trust advice without either an ongoing banking/financial advice relationship (eg private bank) or it’s a paid for service.

I can’t help but wonder why she chose a high street conveyancer knowing her affairs were complicated . Anyone with common sense or not wanting to shaft the system would go to specialists straight away .

FWIW and sorry if it's been said already but you can be a conveyancer and not be legally qualified as a solicitor.

I have a friend whose buyers were using a national conveyancing company and she had a lot of issues with the sale because they were not very professional.

And conveyancers are not always legally qualified as solicitors.
You can be a conveyancer but not a lawyer/solicitor.

Yes makes sense

Apologies if not already mentioned, but Shoosmiths (the firm who set up the house trust) have disowned Ange.

I don’t have a share-token for The Lawyer, but the headline I could see suggests this wouldn’t be so different:
https://www.legalcheek.com/2025/09/shoosmiths-distances-itself-as-angela-rayner-tax-row-escalates/amp/

Well, it's not even Herne Bay (they have their registered office in HB), they work out of an office in a village on the edge of HB. So not even HB high street, but a random small place outside of the main commercial bit. Odd. Unless they have a working relationship with the estate agents I suppose. That's possible.

Yeah, I said that pages back. It's hardly ever the wrong doing, its the subsequent lying that does for them.

I assume she is going to say something along the lines of 'They never asked me if I had the property in Trust'....

I have said to my partner she will be gone when the report comes out.

She will try and say she misunderstood the rules and didn’t mean to mislead the conveyancing firm.

Unless of course she does have written confirmation that her circumstances/trust situation did allow her to just pay the standard SD.

Probably no hope or Bob Hope either of those things are true.When you lie and lie again you have to ensure you get your story right every single time you are asked.

Hopefully the report will come out tomorrow.

Starmer must be spitting feathers over this. It makes him look weak.

Conveyancing solicitors are not tax specialists. Given she had a history with another firm I’d wonder if using a new, small firm was to try and save herself £40k with someone who didn’t know the wider context.

It makes him look weak

One of the many things in a crowded field....

I've been fined £100 (and interest on that ) by HMRC in the past for late tax returns when I had no tax to pay and no one told me I had to file a tax return.

I file tax returns way in advance now. I had one tax investigation which found I had over paid tax, it cost me over £4000 in tax advice (money I don't have).

HMRC are absolutely ruthless and unforgiving, they wanted every possible penny, didn't care whether the investigation cost more than they found and they ended up paying me tax back because I had been too careful anyway.

If Angela Rayner gets special treatment then it's total hypocrisy.

The other question is around her role as a trustee. Trustees cannot profit from their role as a trustee.

I would have expected the Court of Protection to have been involved in the transfer of the share in the family home to the trustees of the trust. Particularly if the transfer was for value. Surely this is a clear conflict of interest as Ms Rayner was selling as a legal and beneficial owner and also purchasing as a trustee.

I have had two cases recently where attorneys (not trustees) wanted to buy their parent’s home, at market value, after the parent who no longer had capacity had moved into a care home. Both cases required an application to the CoP for a decision by a judge.

There’s this issue as well as the issue of the family home being over valued as well. She’s really up to her neck in it isn’t she.

As is your post, off thread but i failed to declare bank interest, believing i didn't need too as it was under the £1000 TH... HMRC accepted this, no penalty.

Late returns are late returns, the dates are very clear, as are when you have to fill out SA, there is even a calculator for it, no excuse.

HMRC do give special treatment, see Vodaphone deal or the Bankers in the 'city, they 've been pulled up for both.

Back to AR, has she said she sought advice from her conveyancers? or is this just what people have made up??

She doesn't do her own valuation, you do know this don't you? perhaps not given the posts.

Or are you calling into question the valuers honesty?

She said it
They've denied it
They said they worked out her stamp liability based on what she told them.

She also had her other house overvalued at £650,000 in order to draw done £162,500 ie her 25% share. It’s actually only worth approx £350/400,000.

So now she’s outed as defrauding her own son’s estate !!!!

😂 Obviously she doesn’t do her own valuation. Okay, ‘allegedly’ (according to The Times, not myself) her home might have been overvalued. Nice and convinient that the exact amount of her and her exes shares ended up being the amount whereby you don’t pay inheritance tax too ain’t it?

Angela Rayner put her Ashton-under-Lyne home into a trust for her son when it was valued at £650k — exactly the inheritance tax threshold for couples. Critics call it a “remarkable coincidence” suggesting tax avoidance, though her team deny any link to IHT planning. 🤣

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/buying-selling/why-angela-rayner-house-more-expensive-neighbours/

The problem here is that identical houses on the same street are selling for around half of what AR's house is valued at.
Make of that what you will.

Exactly
and
As part owners they would be required to agree to any valuations done by third parties.
So it will be interesting to see how she queried why hers is worth twice all the others on the street

I don't dislike Rayner, and I have immense respect for her achievement, and I think she has probably tried to do the right thing for her disabled child and her family with an eye on the very long term, past her own death. While I disagree with her politically on every level, in this situation I would give her the benefit of the doubt. I don't think she has set out to cheat the tax rules here. Written as a Tory.

Getting to Deputy Prime Minister after leaving school pregnant at 16 and with no GCSEs is a massive achievement.
Putting the family home in trust for her disabled son for the future is a perfectly noble and decent thing to do.

None of that has got anything to do with what she’s under investigation for.