Stamp duty demand

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We bought our new house at the end of October, with the same solicitors for this purchase and selling our old house. We had the final bill from the solicitors on the day of moving, including £13750 stamp duty - this was taken from the proceeds of our house sale

We've now had a letter from hrmc with a demand for this amount in stamp duty. Of course the solicitors office is now closed. I've spoken to our estate agent who says that she hasn't heard of this happening in her 20 years of experience...

It very much appears that our solicitors haven't paid the stamp duty? The letter from hrmc is dated 16th Nov. Does anyone have experience of this happening or any advice?

For background the solicitors were hopeless throughout

The solicitors are closed - because it is Friday evening and they will reopen on Monday OR they have ceased trading?

Just as it's Friday!

Good!!!

Email theam and then follow up on Monday, if they've got the money and they are contracted to deal with it then they will have to sort it.

And when it's sorted, complain to the Law Society about them.

Yes thank you were emailing now and will call first thing Monday. Feeling so frustrated and alarmed

Not the same OP but we had a letter around 3 months after moving in from land registry (I think?) with a 1.5k fine for not registering as the new owners within the required timeframe. Sent it on to the (also dreadful) solicitors who sorted it and we had nothing to pay. Conveyancing solicitors in my experience are all terrible!!

Feeling so frustrated and alarmed.
I can imagine, but try not to worry.
If your completion statement shows they've withheld these funds and the numbers all make sense then I'm sure it will all get sorted.

Yep it very much feels like the solicitors need to sort this asap. We've emailed our solicitor, his boss and the chief exec.

Thanks very much

It happens from time to time (Property lawyer here) when HMRC don't apply the funds to the correct account.

Don't worry - it'll be an admin error

Don't panic! Your solicitors will deal with it on Monday - it's an admin error, easily fixed, it won't cost you anything.

They've either forgotten to pay it, or more likely they have paid it but not applied the reference properly. It happens a lot with stamp duty references - the reference numbers are unique to the transaction but they are really long and can easily be typed wrong. I've dealt a lot with this (20 years experience in commercial property!) and it's easily sorted.

Honestly, it will be sorted on Monday, don't let this ruin your weekend.

Thank you singing that's really helpful

Agree with above. Most likely a code error. We do a lot of stamp duty applications each week and occasionally errors like this occur.

Do you have a statement from them showing that they retained this amount for stamp duty? If so it will be resolved, it might be admin but it will have to be resolved as you instructed them to deal with this matter on your behalf, they accepted the instruction and they wrote to tell you they have that money.

This happened to us. The solicitor made an error with the form. They paid it and also paid the fine.

We moved at the end of sept and had the exact same thing happen! We called the solicitors, who said they’d paid it (they had), and said they would contact HMRC. They did, and told us it was sorted. But then we got another demand for payment from HMRC a couple of weeks later 🙄 and this time we called HMRC ourselves. They were really helpful, apologised, and confirmed it was an admin error. Not nice to get those letters! But don’t worry, I’m all likelihood it’s an admin error.

Thanks everyone glad to hear we're not the only ones this has happened to

Yes the bill shows that they keep the money for stamp duty

This happened to me it's not been finalised properly, the solicitors will be able to sort it fairly quickly for you. If you get any further letters send a copy to your solicitor.

My solicitor didn't redeem my mortgage properly so I paid the new mortgage and the new one then got the stamp duty letter. Long story short I ended up getting a full refund of solicitor fees plus compensation. The stamp duty part was the easiest to fix

Thank you fatsingle

We had this with an awful online conveyancer.
Was the company a similar type?

Nope it was a large firm of solicitors recommended by our (excellent) estate agents...

I'm afraid that agents only recommend large firms of lawyers (mostly not solicitors) when they are paid a referral fee for doing so

Our firm is tiny and gets referred because we are good, we don't pay any referral fees to any agents. But this is true of the large ones. Bridgfords and Countrywide are linked in some way. Countrywide are a nightmare to deal with.