Stamp Duty Refund for Residential Home Owners

If you purchased a property in the last five years, there is a very good chance you overpaid on stamp duty.

What is Stamp Duty?

Stamp Duty or the Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) is a tax levied on every property purchase in the UK and paid by the buyer of a property. The amount of stamp duty to be paid is based mainly on the value of the property (although, as seen below, a number of other lesser factors should also be used to calculate the amount.)

Why Might I Have Paid Too Much Stamp Duty?

There are a number of reasons why people might have paid too much but the main reason is that the stamp duty land tax legislation has been amended and changed more times than most other legislation on the statute books. Because of these changes and the complexities of stamp duty, it has become one of the most confusing and least understood taxes, by both the people buying the houses and their solicitors. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there have also been problems with HMRC’s online calculators, which were not able to input all of the variables needed to properly calculate the correct SDLT value of a transaction. These problems led HMRC to eventually admit that the calculators were only meant to be a ‘guide.’ However, solicitors and buyers had been using them as their main method of calculating money owed and consequently mistakes were made.

Checking Whether You Have Overpaid

When it comes to residential property, there are certain types of property that are more likely to be suitable for claiming back stamp duty. To find out if yours might be suitable, see if the answer is yes to any of the following questions:

• Did your property come with land of more than half a hectare?
• Did your property come with any extra buildings that could be classed as commercial or non-residential?
• Did your property come with stables?
• Did your property come with an annex, granny flat or extra cottage?
• Did your property come with any public rights, (such as a walk through to public parkland?)

If you can answer yes on any of these then it is very likely you were overcharged on your stamp duty and are due a large refund. We work on a no claim no fee basis so it will cost you nothing for us to check whether you are owed money.