Is stamp duty payable on a shared ownership home?

[hsc-online]

I am buying a flat with my partner. I am a nonworker and we are purchasing under the new-build Homebuy scheme and are buying a 60% share at a cost of £169,000. We were hoping to complete around April. In the budget we heard it was no longer necessary to pay stamp duty until you staircase your share of a property up to 80%. I asked our solicitor to look into it and he has come back saying he spoke to HMRC and we do still have to pay it – apparently it is only exempt if the value of the share of the property is less than £125,000. As far as I know that has been the rule for sometime, but the new rule applies only to shared ownership and did not depend on the value being purchased. Is this correct?

[brian]

I think if your solicitor professionally advises this then you either have to accept their opinion - or prepare to file for negligence on their part.

[Richard Webster]

There was a quirk in the legal position before whereby the normal exemption from SDLT (new name for Stamp Duty) where the price did not exceed £125K (or £150K in some areas) did not apply to new leases (and new shared ownership involves a new lease) where the annual rent exceeded £600 pa and most SO leases would have a rent well over that figure.

All the new rule does is get rid of that anomaly so if the price of the share being bought is no more than £125K (£150K is some areas) then no tax is payable.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.