WOULD YOU PAY SOMEONE'S STAMP DUTY TO SELL YOUR HOUSE???

[babywhiting]

Am now buying a house for quite alot of money and they are desperate for the money but not sure if theyre greedy or not. would you pay the stamp duty of 3% to sell or not?????

[muppetgirl]

All depends how desperate you are to sell. My brother was at the end of a chain and stood to make a rather large ammount of money from his house sale and the people below him were 'guzumped' by a £1000 so he reduced his price by that ammount in order to sell.

Others might not have done it but he made a large ammount....

I suppose it's a question of -can you afford to pay it?
Are you that desperate to sell?

[HectorsHouse]

no stamp duty is the buyers responsibility

your offer should be what you are happy to pay imo

i think its cheeky unless they are a company

[HectorsHouse]

you're talking at least £15K aren't you

[babywhiting]

no not quite that much!!!! they are a company.

[HectorsHouse]

if its a company have they offered to pay stamp duty

how can it not be that much? 3% comes in at 500K doesn't it? or am I wrong .. off to check

[oooggs]

I thought 3% came in at £250,000?

[HectorsHouse]

ahh yes got it wrong its 250 to 500 that's 3%

I think if its a company its fair enough asking them but 7.5 to 15K is a fair whack to take

[babywhiting]

over £250k it becomes 3% so i was led to believe. 1% for under 250k. no they havnt offered.

[HectorsHouse]

so ask them but don't be shocked if they tell you where to go

[babywhiting]

thank you ,we will see fingers crossed as otherwise its alot of searching.

[HectorsHouse]

may I ask what you feel the difference is between reducing your offer by that amount and asking them to pay stamp duty?

it is the same bottom line effect to the company selling, its not like they get a discount on the cost

now if you asked them for something they could do at lower than the cost to you then that's different .. like carpeting / decorating / repairs etc

[muppetgirl]

if you are asking them to pay the stamp duty is it because you don't have it?

When we negotiated with our house builders (new house) we went for price reduction and would again rather than carpets and curtains as you borrow less money...which, over 20/30 years is quite a lot.

[scienceteacher]

It sounds like a way of getting a price drop, without informing the mortgage company - ie buyers get a higher mortgage that they otherwise should.

The sensible thing would be to actually have a lower selling price, then the government, solicitors, estate agents, all get a lower cut.

[WideWebWitch]

I'd love someone to pay our stamp duty, we're thinking of buying in the next 6 months and it'll be a crippling amount.

3% is payable over £250k - presumably this is a property developer keen to shift a house?

I'm seeing developers offering this as a sign of a weakening market (hopeful emoticon as we want to buy and be in a buyer's market which it hasn't been for a LNG time)

[muppetgirl]

When we bought ours we cheekily asked for lower price, stamp duty paid and as it was the last in the road and the house already had carpets and curtains as the previous sale had fallen through as that was their deal.

By cheeky, you never know...

[lionheart]

Same here WWW. MIL bought a house with a Stamp Duty Paid on it but I think they just raised the price on the house so it made no difference.

[lionheart]

If it is a company your could look at what they are offering on their other developments to see if there is a precedent.

[LIZS]

I'd consider dropping the price to rebate some of it but wouldn't overtly pay it. ie if someone really wanted to only spend 250k but price was 265k, I'd drop to fund the difference in Stamp Duty between the 2 prices, so on those figures it may be about 5k, effectively accepting an offer around £260 plus.

I suppose the difference is that by exchanging cash for Stamp Duty rather than reducign the price, the "full" price will still be registered , articifially sustaining future selling prices - important in a newbuild development with further phases to release.