Stamp duty second property

[jane1324]

Hi, any advice please
I own a house and met my partner who owns a house. We moved in together and live in one main residence and I rented out my property.
We want to sell our main residence that you both live in and buy a new house together on a joint mortgage. We are also now married.
Do we have to pay additional stamp duty, as I still have my home that is happily rented out and obviously not our main residence. Will we still get stung with the 3% stamp duty when we go a head and buy a house together that is under £240k.
Thank you for any advice

Yes

The guidance states you will not pay the extra 3% SDLT if the property you’re buying is replacing your main residence that has already been sold - so if you sell your current main residence at the same time then no.
You’ll find this page helpful: https://www.gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax/residential-property-rates#:~:text=If%20you're%20replacing%20your,have%20to%20pay%20higher%20rates.

We've just gone through almost the exact same scenario. As you are replacing your main residence and at completion will have not increased your number of properties (still owning 2 between you) you just pay the standard rate of stamp duty. Also to add when you are married it doesn't matter who's name the property is in as as a married couple you are classed as one in hmrc's eyes. Hope this helps. If you're still not sure the hmrc's helpline was really good when I called them.

But you will have to elect it as your main residence and married couples can only have one main residence between them

Still a bit confused though.. as I will have two properties as such . My old house that I rent out and haven’t lived in for several years as I moved into my partners house our main residence ( but I was not on my partners mortgage) and now the new house that myself and the other half are getting a joint mortgage with to live in as our main residence.
the gov.com website doesn’t really go into much detail

No you won’t have to pay the additional stamp duty. We were in a similar position I hadn’t lived in my rented out property for years. We sold the house we were both living in (although in DH’s name) which was our main residence. So we were just replacing our main residence when we moved and got a joint mortgage, therefore no additional stamp duty was due.