I am sure in the old days, when buying a house, people would offer say £100k for the house (when houses used to be much cheaper...) and £2k for the carpets and curtains. presumably to save stamp duty. I distinctly remember my parents doing something like this when I was of course a very young child in the eighties....
And then this pretty much stopped.
Presumably some loop hole was fixed so this did not work any more. Does anyone recall why this stopped? I have a vague memory of there being a reason.
I have a client selling a second home fully furnished. Actually it is abroad so stamp duty is not an issue, but if they split the proceeds between furniture and house, then presumably we can use just the house price for the cgt comp and no tax would be due on the furniture sale (as long as the split is fair, clearly).
Or is there some reason why this does not work?
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The change in SDLT around 2014 from the slab rate to tiered rates made this not worth the hassle in most cases. As a result, most buyers overpay small amounts of SDLT from laziness etc. now.
the change I am talking about happened many many years ago, when stamp duty was all at one rate, so it was not to do with that. really just wanting to know if anyone is aware of any anti avoidance legislation preventing my client from splitting the proceeds (fairly of course) between house and furniture as I have this nagging doubt in my head...
In France it is quite common for holiday homes in particular to sell the furniture as a private transaction away from the main sale. That said it has historically been common that when you buy a house the kitchen will have a sink and no other furniture and carpets and curtains aren't very common so the split between the property and chattels is pretty clear
And then you have Germany where in let flats outgoing tenants seem to take away the light fittings when they depart- when we visited our son just after he had moved to Frankfurt I spent a chunk of "my holiday" up a ladder splicing new light fittings into his lighting circuits.
When we bought in Sweden the property was advertised with pretty much all the furniture (tables/chairs/sideboards/beds/TV stand/sofa) and contents included (TV/Stereo/cutlery/crockery/pots/coffee makers/dishtowels/ornaments ,tools etc), the only things I expressly paid for, with a distinct settlement, were a small dingy with electric outboard, an unused petrol backup generator on wheels and a near brand new petrol grass trimmer (which latter has been a right pain as it is German and I cannot seem to source a replacement strimmer head that fits)
The lack of price division ought to now act in our favour if we do now sell (as seems likely) as with no allocation of price at purchase my base cost will likely be higher than it might otherwise have been.
…and the splitting of proceeds is still in HMRC's stamp duty manual (SDLTM04010)….
And why shouldn't it be? It still works per my above comment (only much less significantly, so most people don't bother).
I agree with you Justin - wasn't suggesting otherwise.
I should have known you'd have a Scooby.
:)
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incompetent solicitor?
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