Updating post from Reddit.
Hi,
Myself and my husband are currently going through the process of buying our first home.
My brother currently lives in my late parents house ( we own 50/50, no mortgage). He pays for bills but doesn’t pay me anything at present.
Will I be charged the higher stamp duty as I technically own another property?
Thanks
Yes, you own another property and it's not your main residence.
Even though it was inherited?
Not the person you are replying to, but yes
Yes
Yes, you still own it. It is not about buying but owing.
Nothing says about any exception for this.
Not sure why you think this makes a difference?
You will need to check with your Solicitors, but generally, you will be liable for the additional 5% SDLT.
If your 50% share of the house is worth under £40,000 it is possible you are not liable on the new main residence.
Even without this half share, you would both still be liable for the additional SDLT, as your husband also owns an additional dwelling (aulthough reclaimable if it was sold in the next 3 years).
The other option is to transfer your share of your late parents house into a company. The company would need to pay the aditional 5% SDLT on the value of the half share, as well as ongoing costs of running a company, but it would mean that your new main residence would not attract the 5% (aulthough, you would obviously not be able to claim FTB releif). You would have to run the numbers to see if this is worth it.
Speak to your solicitor, or acountant, who would be best place to advise.
Yes, you will be liable for higher stamp duty. There are some limited exceptions if your share is less than £40K. Your conveyancer should be able to confirm.
You will have the pay the additional SDLT.
Given your husband isn’t planning an immediate sale of the flat, you must be expecting to fund this in the short term. You therefore have time.
If your brother raised your share against the property itself as there is no mortgage, he could buy your half from you. He would pay SDLT based on the value.
You could sell in stages over that time, doing a transfer of equity at the start and then at remortgage time to split this which may keep some of the transfer under the SDLT threshold.
SDLT is charged on the consideration so in theory you could gift the property and reduce that way but your related nature might be captured under other rules, and the benefit from the property value that is yours, you’d need to be pretty trusting.
Another point is that if you are using ftb benefits to buy you won't be able to do that either. Your umhushand can use his as a portion but you lost that first time buyer perks on inheriting the share of the house.
Husband can’t use his first time buyer privileges if they’re buying together, that’s not how it works.
He could use a LISA if he had one.