Hi
The property we are interested in is over 250k so we will be liable for a whopping 3%stamp duty
Does anybody now of a legal or otherwise… way around this
The property will be around 270k…im thinking pay the 250K legally then meet the vendor with a healthy cash donation to his favorite charity ????
Any other ideas ?????

Thanks

Does the property have a detached garage? You could treat them as separate properties. Alternatively, do a similar thing with some of the garden.

theyve closed ALL the loopholes now.

any chattels sold with the property (carpets etc) have to have a formal valuation to be allowed to be deducted from the sale price of the house itself for SDLT purposes.

you* voted him in, you bend over and take it like a dog 🙂

* estimate based on the fact that there were quite a lot of idiots who voted Gordon’s party into government 3 times in a row! 🙂

biekmoneky – nope, SDLT declaration includes a bit on whether the transaction forms part of a larger one, i.e. part of two parts.

If it’s asking price 270k, then offer 249,999 and wait a bit until they get desperate. It’s only 8% below, people will take that in this market (average sale price is 10% below at the moment).

Have you looked it up with property bee to see how desperate they are to sell (tells you how long it’s been on the market, whether they’ve dropped price etc.)

Joe

I doubt there is a legal way around it. Wouldn’t advise trying to avoid it either, as tax evasion is a pretty serious matter. A friend of mine got pulled for it, the IR just told him to pay a multiple of his liabilities or face the consequences. I’d imagine your “donation” idea might have been considered by the authorities!

Besides that, the tax you are paying helps to prop up our society. And **** me does it need propping up at the moment! Anyone would baulk at an £8k tax bill, so this might work to your advantage. It could well mean that nobody will pay over £250k for the house you want.

there is nothing you can do
the cml/sdlt form has been brought in to prevent this

The asking price was 310 in august 08 dropped it to 295 jan 09
Ive already offered 250 and been rejected
its the stamp duty thats killing me Almost 8k
If i did trhe donation thing how would anybody find out ?
Gooner….whats the cml/sdlt form???

sounds like you can’t afford it, so don’t buy it. hth

oh and it wouldn’t be tax evasion, it would be fraud

Winstonsmith
Youre right but the wife insists we can ,,and im not selling any bikes to get it

then tell her to get a second job if she likes it so much

It’s only 8k, which compared to the total cost is not insane. Just don’t offer more than 8k less than you can afford.

As for whether they’d find it out – you’d risk getting done, because when you pay in such a large quantity of cash, the bank want to know where it has come from (and taking out 20k would probably ring some alarm bells in their fraud reporting systems too).

You’d also be asking the vendor to commit fraud, which they’d would be bloody stupid to agree to. Not to mention that it’s pretty stupid for either you or him to hang around with 20k in cash, there’d be a lot of trust involved in that transaction.

Also, just because you’ve been rejected for a certain amount, it doesn’t mean that you certainly won’t get an offer accepted in the end – that was the case when buying our house, just took a bit of time for them to give in.

Joe

cml/sdlt form is the disclosure form that seller (or their solicitor) fills in detailing selling price, extras, incentives etc etc
they are randomly requested by IR from solicitors to check that sdlt (stamp duty land tax) is not evaded
i doubt your solicitor would be party to a “donation” as it would be mortgage fraud

Legal ways around this do not exist.

If you agree a price of £249,999 after you’ve given the seller a generous present of £20,000 in unmarked, non-sequential used bills because he was just such a lovely bloke then I doubt there would be any certainty of you getting caught, but it wouldn’t be pretty if it happened. You’d also have to avoid dealing with solicitors on it. The likely outcome, I’d have thought, is that your seller trousers the £20,000 and then tells you to pay £270,000 for the house or he’ll grass you up.

OK i get the picture
For sale
cove hummer
Turner 5 spot
lastly
merlin cr 3/2.5 road bike
all in excellent condition

Thanks guys looks to dodgy to even attempt it