Stamp duty on transfers between spouses
I have owned a property jointly with my husband since 1995. We transferred the mortgage from residential to buy to let in 2002 and now have 3 BTL properties in our portfolio.
My husband is 69 and to remortgage the property we agreed that it will be transferred into my name.
Advice from our mortgage broker was that transfers between husband and wife are exempt from capital gains tax and stamp duty. However, our conveyancing agent has informed me that this is not the case and a stamp duty of £1,450 is payable since the transfer is not by a court order.
Is this correct?
Many thanks in advance for your advice.
Sincerely
Sara
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Member Since September 2013 - Comments: 64 - Articles: 1
8:32 PM, 21st April 2015, About 11 years ago
Reply to the comment left by “Mark Alexander” at “21/04/2015 – 19:34“:
Yes Mark, joint owners will be jointly and severally liable for a mortgage (although I suppose a lender could agree otherwise in a particular case.).
But if you are referring to the way HMRC treat transfers between joint owners, well, they’re the tax men so they can interpret things how they like (or at least, how the legislation says they can.)
As a matter of interest I found that it always paid to look at HMRC’s own manual on SDLT, as this sets out their interpretation of the legislation and is treated as gospel by their staff. You might not agree with their interpretation, but you would probably have to take a case to court to persuade them otherwise. (See http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/sdltmanual/index.htm)
Member Since January 2015 - Comments: 21
12:00 PM, 22nd April 2015, About 11 years ago
Reply to the comment left by “Mark Alexander” at “21/04/2015 – 19:34“:
the joint and several liability relates to the rights of the lender to pursue just one borrower for the whole of any loss made on re-sale without having to track down the other one. Any legal proceedings and subsequent registering of a bad credit record will be taken against both borrowers. For the purposes of SDLT it’s assumed half of the mortgage liability is being transferred to the remaining borrower irrelevant of how the title may be held in terms of percentage ownership.
Member Since December 2014 - Comments: 1
9:08 PM, 8th May 2015, About 11 years ago
Reply to the comment left by “Ian Ringrose” at “21/04/2015 – 11:49“:
Hi can you explain what a form 14 is and what how does it assist? thanks