Stamp duty property development

[bigbaddom]

Hi

Looking for a bit of quick advice as I couldn't find a clear answer to what I am sure is a simple question to someone who knows

I am thinking of setting up a ltd company to start doin some residential projects.
Mainly refurbs rather than new builds if that matters

I saw in 2014 the budget said they would introduce sdlt for property purchased through a company @ 15%

I think I remember previously that this didn't apply to developers.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks!
Dom

[JQ]

bigbaddom said:

Hi

Looking for a bit of quick advice as I couldn't find a clear answer to what I am sure is a simple question to someone who knows

I am thinking of setting up a ltd company to start doin some residential projects.
Mainly refurbs rather than new builds if that matters

I saw in 2014 the budget said they would introduce sdlt for property purchased through a company @ 15%

I think I remember previously that this didn't apply to developers.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks!
Dom

I'm no expert on this matter, but I thought that was introduced to close the loophole of "Transfer as a Going Concern", where a single property or portfolio of properties was registered as a company and it was the company that was sold rather than the property thereby avoiding SDLT. Often these companies were registered in Guernsey or the Isle of Man to avoid other taxes. These were generally multi-million pound transactions as the set up costs were quite high, and so the savings that could be made when avoiding 4% SDLT were substantial. As such, if you buy a property in the normal fashion, you'll just pay the standard SDLT rate.

I am not an accountant, so best getting proper advice than taking advice from me. I know several very experienced property investors who've got their tax affairs very very wrong with poor tax planning and wish they'd paid for proper advice from the outset.