Legal News
Wealthy Foreign Buyers Avoid Stamp Duty (8 September 2011)
Date: 08/09/2011
Foreign millionaires are buying up lavish houses in Britain and successfully avoiding stamp duty. Just last month, a mystery foreign buyer purchased Park Place, near Henley, for a staggering £140 million. He used a single-asset company to make his purchase, effectively avoiding paying £7 million in stamp duty. The only contribution the owner is likely to make to the Treasury is South Oxfordshire's top-rate yearly council tax payment of £2,942.50.
The majority of the multi-million-pound properties located at One Hyde Park are thought to have been acquired through offshore companies. This means that stamp duty will not be paid on resale.
The National Housing Federation has predicted that the considerable cost of houses and the difficulties in acquiring mortgages will reduce the number of people in England who own their own home from 72.5 per cent in 2001 to 63.8 per cent in 2021. The federation predicts that in London, a fall from 51.6 per cent in 2010 to 44 per cent in 2021 will be witnessed. It forecasts a small increase in the number of people who own their own home in the North-East. The Government’s own home-ownership statistics are expressed differently, noting the percentage of owner-occupied households. Yet statistics show that this figure has already experienced a sharp fall, from a peak of 70 per cent in 2002 to just 65.1 per cent in 2010.
Conveyancing solicitors at Duncan Lewis act for both residential and commercial clients. The team has assisted across a range of commercial and residential transactions in the understanding that each client and case is highly unique.