Don’t pay Stamp Duty (SDLT) – Is It Legal?
October 30th, 2009
There are enormous financial benefits available to our buying clients through utilising the Stamp Duty Land Tax Mitigation Scheme. It can seriously improve your wealth. There are many schemes out there at the moment.
You may be aware that The Independent newspaper ran an article about the Labour Party’s use of SDLT planning which saved them £210,000 in stamp duty land tax. Its perhaps not helpful to go into too much depth on any one scheme but here are some highlights of what we would expect a client to see in any particular plan: -
1). That a scheme has been running for a good length of time (even with amendments).
2). That its proven to work in a good number of cases.
3). The planning is backed by a robust Counsel’s Opinion given by leading Tax Counsel.
4). That the plan has been disclosed to HMRC and has a corresponding scheme disclosure number ensuring that it is fully compliant with HMRC requirements for tax planning.
5). That any queries by the Inland Revenue have been promptly and easily satisfied.
6). That the saving from the scheme is substantial.
7). That their is a ‘no-win-no-fee’ undertaking, via which all fees are fully refunded to the client in the event of a successful challenge by HMRC.
9). That the scheme is low risk and non-aggressive and does not involve either the vendor or the lending institution involved in the transaction or effect either their title, security or ability to realise funds from the sale of the property.
How does it work?
If you may be interested in more information on this give Stephen Dyer a call on 0800 074 5335 or 07768 778800 and he can put you in touch with our preferred expert on this sdlt scheme.
Labels: SDLT, Stamp Duty
Unfortunately my sources now all appear to agree that the door is closing. This is what Elizabeth Bischoff a partner and speacialist Tax strategist of Charterhouse has said on the 26th July. -
“With all the recent rumours about SDLT culminating in an hmrc announcement that SDLT schemes based on subsale rules (e.g. Husband and Wife schemes) were to be targeted vigorously we ditched the idea of having our own cheap and cheerful SDLT subsale “punt” as it didn’t seem to us like good advice to be giving.
However at the same time we managed to persuade the City Law Firm that we use to lower the entry level for their more sophisticated SDLT plan based on Sharia law and I’m please to say that more clients can now avail themselves of this arrangement:
Leasehold property – minimum purchase price £1.25 million
Freehold property with a mortgage – minimum purchase price £1 million
Freehold property with no mortgage – minimum purchase price £750,000
So, this is so you know who can and cannot be helped easily these days.
The other fly in the ointment is the fact that several banks will no longer cooperate with an SDLT plan. RBS were the first to stop (not surprisingly being mainly Govt owned) and now HSBC and Barclays are equally obstructive. We do know that Santander; EFG and Handelsbanken seem very happy with tax planning and have not had any difficulties with those.”
In this fast moving environment her latest message is: -
The bad news is now that almost all banks are refusing to lend into any tax planning arrangement – apparently Investec have done a few in the last two months now it’s purchasers with 100% cash that re the only people who are likely to be able to do it………….
Do give her a call if you need to know more (and have any serious enquiries) – tel: 020 8863 4566
Hi Steven
I think your article relating to who will, and who will not entertain an SDLT plan, is a little off kilter.
As a Mortgage Broker, who has carried out a substantial amount of mortgage business where there is an SDLT plan involved, I can assure you that Handelsbanken will certainly not entertain any such business and I have only today had a case turned down by Santander.
Regards
Norman Bradford – CeMAP
GHL
Norman
Thank you for your comment. I deliberately updated the original blog post to make it clear it was getting very difficult. Perhaps now impossible. Is it a cash buyer only opportunity or have you been able to find anyone else?
In response to the above, there is also the conveyancing to consider.
My company provide a link to specialist conveyancing solicitors from various law firms across the UK who will proceed on cases where robust council’s opinion is clearly in place for the SDLT mitigation planning. This ‘link’, in our experience, is crucial to these cases moving forward successfully. Most conveyancing solicitors have not /will not take the time to find out the full details of these schemes and generally react negatively. .
That’s why Convey with Me is a great starting point. And as a result of the popularity of our conveyancing offer to support SDLT planning, we have responded to new client requests and now offer this specialist tax planning directly for purchases over £250K.
We tick all the boxes on the following:
1). That a scheme has been running for a good length of time (even with amendments).
2). That its proven to work in a good number of cases.
3). The planning is backed by a robust Counsel’s Opinion given by leading Tax Counsel.
4). That the plan has been disclosed to HMRC and has a corresponding scheme disclosure number ensuring that it is fully compliant with HMRC requirements for tax planning.
5). That any queries by the Inland Revenue have been promptly and easily satisfied.
6). That the saving from the scheme is substantial.
7). That their is a ‘no-win-no-fee’ undertaking, via which all fees are fully refunded to the client in the event of a successful challenge by HMRC.
9). That the scheme is low risk and non-aggressive and does not involve either the vendor or the lending institution involved in the transaction or effect either their title, security or ability to realise funds from the sale of the property.
Give us a call for conveyancing support if you are considering SDLT mitigation planning or if you would like to engage in the planning.
(0191) 645 2868
The smartest guys in the room on this are an outfit called Stratega; they are cleverer than HMRC. If they do this then so should you.
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