stamp duty pricing problem. Reckon we fit in that no-man#s land!

[threeleftfeet]

We had our flat valued at prices stretching from £250K to £290!

Looking at comparable flats in the area, we put it on at £279,999. It was obvious at the time that this was where it fitted.

The others on at £250K simply didn't offer the space or features (garden, own entrance) that ours does, so that definitely seemed too low.

However since putting it on the market, others have come onto the market locally at the same price - or just £5K more - which are more desirable for one reason or another (quieter road / more desirable location / bigger garden etc) so we have some serious competition now!

I'm thinking that actually the natural asking price for ours is about £269,999 - but no ones asks for that because of stamp duty, do they? Or have I understood this wrong?).

I'm not keen on accepting a low offer at £250K as we won't be able to get a 3 bed family house where are - which is the whole point of doing this really. and I'm confident that that's too low.

If we did drop the price would that look desperate?

We've had a fair few viewers but no serious offers as yet. This waiting-and-seeing is driving me nuts!

I agree, it make no sense - none that I can fathom anyway!

When we were looking we offered 500k on a house on at 515k. They got two offers at that price and asked for best and final. We walked away as the additional cost of stamp duty wasn't worth it in our opinion. Ironically if we'd offered 520, we'd probably have gone say to 525, although obviously not for that house. We ended up paying quite a bit more, with the additional SD of course, but the house was first put on the market for over 100k what we paid, so was clearly not going to go below 500k.

At what point do you actually pay stamp duty?

If we decided to offer to pay the stamp duty, could pay for it out of the equity on the sale or would we need to stump it up upfront I wonder?

I reckon it's only worth us doing that if they go for not too far off the asking price though, does it really make sense to do for us? Need to ponder some more!

You have I think 28 days post sale to pay the stamp duty so paying out of equity would be fine.

We are in London and just sold our house which was on the market at 289k and we didn't get any really low offers due to stamp duty - in fact we all the offers we had were in the 270-280s

The one we accepted was from a first time buyer and as they had trouble with cash flow and being able to secure a mortgage at loan to value what with deposit, fees, stamp duty etc we did a deal whereby we agreed house sale at full price and covered 2/3rds of their stamp duty.

I was really dubious about it initially and even posted on here about it, but it was all straight forward. It was done by the solicitors by way of allowance from the sale proceeds so we got total value of house minus our stamp duty contribution for them on day of sale.

Jcee, that's really interesting. We did get an offer of £250K which we rejected.

I'm seriously considering going back to them and offering to pay their stamp duty if they can get a mortgage for close to the asking price.

Although they may have moved on by now of course!

btw, mumsnet has been way more helpful than any estate agent throughout this entire process!

(Getting to the point where I don't make any life decisions without consulting you lot first!)

We have just sold our small London house for 250k

It was probably worth 265k we bought it for 240k just before everything crashed in 2007. We spent money on it that we didn't get back :( but we did love living there for 5 years so I have made my peace with it.

Anyway, our asking price was 250k and we made it very clear (to agents) that we would not accept anything less than full asking price. We sold within a week!

We were advised to list at 250k as lots of buyers will have this as their maximum (due to stamp duty) so will put 250k as max figure when they search online etc, having an asking price of 250k puts you at the top of their search listings. We knew we would never get more for it but pricing it at 250k meant we sold quickly, depends how quickly you want to move on?

I'm keen to move on, but settling for £250K means a 2 bed house with a patio area in the town we want to live in. £270K (or thereabouts) would mean a 3 bed with a nice little garden.

We've got 1 DC, are currently TTC and have a lodger who'd like to come with us if possible.

So a 3 bed is much more preferable to a 2 bed!

Could you offer to pay the stamp duty?

So you would sell for £270,000 pay £8,100 and end up getting £261,900 that would give you an extra £11k to play with?

Oops can see you already thought of that

[More coffee needed]

Good ideas are worth repeating

It wasn't mine though - avivabeaver cleverly suggested it above too.

Here, have a

Actually, I'm starting to get a little miffed at the EA. After we rejected the offer, I asked "what next?" he had no particular suggestions. I also rang him and left a message asking him to call me this morning but he didn't call back.

He should have suggested the stamp-duty tactic then, don't you think? The buyers might have been interested - they said they couldn't go higher because of stamp duty. They may well have offered on somewhere else by now, that was a week ago.

Op where are you in London? The prices you are mentioning might make me guess north east or south east?

We are a bit the same although in the lower stamp duty bracket. Our house was on at 145 but we have reduced the price 5k. We had an offer already at 125 which is the threshold but it is too low and we cannot afford to accept that (we bought at 135 in 2006 but had to gut the property and spend a lot on it). We would take 130 though.
We had some FTB's around earlier and if anything happens I may suggest to the EA if it would be a good idea to offer SD paid or not.

tricot39, spot on, northeast London :)

jenbird it makes sense doesn't it?

I'm going to call our EA tomorrow to discuss this. I'm discovering I'm going to have to put a bit of work in myself if I want things to move! The EA so far has done nothing more than relay messages as far as I can tell.

"Vendor pays stamp" is very hard to document in a way that survives a challenge by the Inland Revenue. If any of you are buying and fall for this, you will need very very good legal advice. It is the buyer who pays stamp duty land tax, and the taxman is looking carefully at cases around the stamp duty land tax threshold levels.

Oh sugar I hadn't thought of that. Do the IR see it as a gift then?

Just asked the EA about the tax issue. That was a waste of time! He said "the tax man doesn't mind where the tax comes from as long as it's paid". Yeah, right.

The Inland Revenue aren't known for ever worrying about where money actually comes from are they?

I'll speak to my solicitor I think!

There is a way round this if you are just over the Se threshold. My friend Sid 255k but the house purchase was 250 and 5k for chattels iCal cooker carpets curtains and other f & f. Her solicitor said this was fine providing it was realistic