I'm considering staircasing my shared ownership flat to maybe buying the rest of the shares (to 100%), so stamp duty will be payable. It was all such a whirlwind when I had to move in originally and it all happened very fast, so I don't remember quite what happened with stamp duty then. As i understand it, there's an option to pay just on the share you buy, or another to pay all of it. I can't possibly imagine why I would have chosen to pay all of it (unless there was some benefit to that and I agreed?) so I assume I just paid it on my share. All the info from the previous conveyancer is on a CD-rom that I can't easily read right now. Is there a way that a new conveyancer can find out that info or will I need to access the CD? (I'm sure I can find someone to do that for me, but it's just easier if I don't need to, if there are central records or something).
I wasn't all that happy with the conveyancer the first time - it was the one that the mortgage people recommended, all as part of the shared ownership thing, so I just went along with it as the fees were included, but there wasn't anything particularly bad about them. Just a bit slow and not that easy to get hold of when needed, didn't push for stuff to be done.
I don't know whether to just go back to them, though, because they will presumably have all my records in some readable format, and know what has been done, and that might make this step easier? I don't know if all conveyancers deal with staircasing, so they obviously do. I did email their general info email address to ask about my old records but had no reply; they do still exist though so I'm sure I could use them again if needed.
All the conveyancers I see online who deal with shared ownership seem to be online only, so I don't know how specialised an area it is. These days you'd think it would be quite common.
I am hoping that the process wouldn't take long or be too complicated, if I've already bought the first share, but I'm probably naive! (Still sorting out the mortgage anyway, so it may not ever actually happen).