h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A friend is buying a house for £260,000 and of course, because it is over £250,000 it attracts stamp duty on the whole price.

Any way round this folks?

PP.

Legally NO

on the other hand if they were buying the house for less than 250K and then something else for 10K...
However their solicitor should advise them of any legal way to do it.

as long as they're not slagging off Boots, Amazon and everyone else for tax avoidance they could ask a solicitor

How much would the duty be on that price?

£7,800, so the effective purchase price (plus other fees and costs ends up being £267,500.

Which is a bit of a bummer.

I'll buy her a coffee at Starbucks and pay the capital gains tax on that happily.

PP.

It must hurt to be on that boundary less than £250,000 it would be 1% and then at £250,000 - £500,000 it is 3%

£500,000 to £1 million 4%
£1million to £2million 5%
above £2million 7%

I would think that the asking price, or the haggling price would reflect the fact that it is a big jump in terms taxes that need to be paid.

While the jump is harsh, if it was me I would suck it up and not be looking to get around it

it is harsh - but if the sellers want that price it's a case of suck it up or miss out. It is very harsh.

But the line has to be set somewhere (although given current house prices that seems like a very low threshold)

Funnily enough I was researching this last week as it's likely to affect our buyers when we get round to selling.

You can bring it down by listing separately (and valuing) anything which *could* be excluded from the sale (carpets and curtains are obvious but there's other stuff, I mean some garages can be dismantled and moved, can't they?). The movable items are then deducted from the sale price, and paid for separately, and that brings down the stamp duty.

But the advice I was looking at also warned that HMRC are quite wise to this so you have to be careful not to over-value the movable items or include as movable items things which aren't. I'm not sure whether a fitted kitchen would count, for example. It's perfectly possible to remove and relocate a fitted kitchen - it's quite a common thing to do when somebody is having a new one fitted. But HMRC might have a different view.

Mol

Actually it's perfectly possible (maybe not strictly legal) for the buyer to accept a lower price, say just under the boundary and accept a private gift to make up the difference. I was advised as such by my financial adviser last time I bought the house.

This was after the fact in my case though - I could have done a deal with my private landlord to buy his house - saving him advertising fees and saving me stamp duty but oh no, he got dollar signs in his eyes so I bought another house on the same street for £10,000 more than I offered him but about £20,000 more than he eventually sold it for. This was in mid 2007 and he thought he market was going up It was more than obvious at the time that it was not… although the extent of the drop when it came was ummm interesting.

seems odd its the buyer that pays stamp duty really... I mean, this little place has gone up... err, about 200% in value, in the last 15 or 14 years since I bought it, which is repulsive a thing, really, but I've done what I can to prevent its increase in value, by letting it just rot ... seems the seller, who's making the obscene profet oughta pay it really... I hate the incrase in value... its against all my marxist beliefs Of course, everything else has gone up by about the same, round here... so its gone up by 0% in real terms, I geuss

It's a shame people don't appreciate that when the market has fallen too. OK, you're going to sell your house* for less than you hoped for - but you're also going to buy at that lower price too - so deal with it.




* Or not if you're too greedy to deal with the fact that it's dropped in value. OK if you're in negative equity that's a different kettle of poissons but U have despaired at friends, family etc. who 'can't' sell their house. What they really mean is that they put it up for sale at a ludicrous price not in step with what the current market value is.

U = I

I still don't get my head round inflation, apparently being 1. whatever percent.... whilst houses round here, are going up by more t han £10000 per year ... heck... I've never earnt as much as my house does, in a year just has to be wrong The housing market is just plain at least my house has some actual size and floor space to it, yet, 5 mins walk away, you can buy a hidious luxery one bed flat, for nearly twice the current value of my three bed place and... who the heck has half a million pounds to spend on a glorified slightly up-sized bedsit Of course, renting is just as £2000 PM, for a 3 bed terrace... My yearly income could let me pay the rent for... err. about three months

2legs, We can always consider the cunning plans in Blackadder II Money Episode no.4

Oh... I have... really far more seriously than one should

I was looking over the info for that episode of Blackadder on IMDB earlier this week but couldn't find out what I wanted to know. Is that the episode where Phil Pope, as Leonardo, keeps saying 'I am a jay-nee-ooos'?

I'm fairly sure it is. Husband thinks Phil Pope was being a character that said that in Chelmsford 123.

Mol

I think* its the one... where it is suggested that... err.... Amy? 'goes on the game'...... at least I think it is.... 'steady job'.... 'work from home'.... etc., etc., (having recently rewatched all the blackadders, with William, as we'd both not seen in years, and so picked up the DVD box set, cheap on EBay )

The Baby eating Bishop of Bath and Wells Lines of great merit "bend over Blackadder its poker time" and "its no good destroying the painting we have the preliminary sketches"

Blackadder II Money Episode no.4

ahh.... not the prostitution refernces that I thought it was... then

As the topic disappears over the horizon; Immortal words Blackadder to Mollie the bedroom companion

You're a one, aren't you? When you should be whispering sweet conversational nothings like ,
"Goodness me something twice the size of the Royal Barge has just hoved into view between the sheets," you don't say a word, but enter the Creature From The Black Latrine and you won't stop jabbering.