What I am asking is the practice of purchasing a house at one tax bracket and then buying the "fixtures and fitting" or garden shed for £15000 still practiced all be it illegal.
If so how best to approach this as I guess the estate agent will not want anything to do with it and it would depend on your relationship with the seller and how much of a risk he/she is willing to take?
Under the Stamp Duty Land Tax regime the risk for this now lies entirely with the purchaser, so the consent of the seller is not necessary.
Following completion the purchaser has to submit a form (SDLT1) to the tax man which gives all the details of the purchase including any split in price between the heritable items (bricks and mortar/land) and moveables (usually white goods, curtains and carpets).
This SDLT1 is usually prepared by the purchasers solicitor and then approved and signed the purchaser himself. The purchaser therefore does decide the split in price and his solicitor will usually go with what his client instructs. The exception to this would be if the solicitor thought the purchaser was clearly "at it" in which case he should refuse to submit the form on his clients behalf.
I think the reality is that purchasers often do apportion unrealistic sums to moveables (especially to get the price below a threshold) but that the solicitor usually goes with it and the tax man rarely investigates.
Now that sounds like an answer from someone in the know. Thank you.
my solicitor wasn't up for it...told me the value declared had to be realistic so no £15k sheds!
the guy at work just bought a house and his dad bought the garden, it ended up suspiciously below any tax bracket.
I remember a mate at work saying he paid £2K for a fridge (and probably a few other items) so he claims...
But I don't think that went Via his solicitor, Manilla envelope job apparently...