As I said sophisticated investors will build the SDLT increase in to their figures but others will get a surprise. Those surprised people will either swallow it or fall for online scammers promising refunds.
I ask a question on this in my Ten Tax Things presentation.
“A house is riddled with asbestos and has no power when purchased. Will the additional SDLT still be due?”
The short answer is that just because a house is dangerous it doesn’t mean’t mean it won’t be due. So many adverts on Instagram suggest that if a house is in a bad state on purchase that it isn’t suitable as a dwelling. Just a little reminder though that HMRC are winning cases on these regular now (well regular for tax cases that is!).
A good place to start is with solid legal advice. Yep legal. Solicitors do this all day every day so they’re a good place to start. As I’ve said earlier the only was all these claim companies could possibly be right is for the whole legal profession to be wrong. Which is more likely?
The Chartered Institute of Tax have a good article here. The Law Society have a good article here as well.