Unpaid stamp duty or not

jonwin02

Bought my house in 2006 for 295000. paid all solicitors costs at time.
Got call from Law society last week to say solicitor has died(rip)but Deed of Transfer has not been signed nor registered.
Only thing I can think of is Stamp Duty was payable and not done.
Was sure at time it was"nt due, not sure now,anyone with a clue?

New house 295,000
owner/occupier
1700 square ft
Not first tme buyer
site value 115,000

If it is due (god forbid) how much? Thanks in advance.

Spear

Moved from N&F.

Senna

I think your liable for stamp duty @5% (someone else might confirm), its over the cost and size thresholds to be exempt.

So €14750, but...

If you do not pay stamp duty by the due date, the penalty (s 14) applicable is €30 plus:................ (c) 30% of unpaid duty if over 12 months late.

You might have to pay €4425 in penalties too.

Can i ask, why the hell didn't you pay this at the time?

Victor

Go over your paperowrk and check what you have paid.

Presumably the stamp duty on the property has already been paid and its the stamp duty on the documents that is outstanding. I get the impression its usually under €1,000.

Marcusm

It would be usual for the solicitor to have insisted that the stamp duty monies were transferred to his client account prior to his drawing down the bank funds (assumed you borrowed money). If you put him in funds and he has failed to settle the stamp duty liability and register the transfer, I suspect that you will have a claim against the estate of the solicitor, his professional indemity carriers and the Law Society's compensation fund. I.e. do not assume that you will end up having to pay the costs. You will have further issues with your bank as if the transfer has not been registered, he will also not have registered the mortgage, i.e. the bank will not have a charge/security registered against the property.

This will be a breach of the terms of the loan, although not your fault. The bank will also have a claim against the solicitor and his insurer as the solicitor will have been acting for the lender (albeit paid by you).

You are unlikely to be the only client in this position and you should establish what the Law Society proposes to do to regularise maters. They may have already identified another solicitor to help you regularise matters.

The first thing to establish is whether you paid the solicitor the stamp duty money.

I would also expect any new solicitor/the Law Society to approach the Revenue Stamps Branch to sort matters out.

jonwin02

Thanks for responce folks
Senna, the first I knew the deeds were not regged was last week.
Asked a solicitor today was there stamp duty due,he said the formula
was, duty was payable on whichever was greater,the site cost or 25% of purchase price minus vat. As both these figures were under the exemption of 127000 no duty was due.
Same solicitor would"nt take job on,too much hassle taking over someone
elses files.

Victor,no stamp duty was paid.
search feeswere paid £46
land reg fees on transfer were paid £500
land reg on bank mortgage £125
legal fees plus vat for all work fully paid

jonwin02

marcusm, I can only assume that my solicitor hit a problem when attempted to reg documents,
Absolutely decent trustworthy man,Im sorry he"s gone,dont understand though why nobody informed me till now.
Five years of mortgage payments and my name is not on the deeds.

Wonder if builder was liquidated could they take house,doe"nt bear thinking about.

anyone know a good solicitor

juke

jonwin02 wrote: »

Asked a solicitor today was there stamp duty due,he said the formula was, duty was payable on whichever was greater,the site cost or 25% of purchase price minus vat. As both these figures were under the exemption of 127000 no duty was due.

That sounds right.

Deed will still have to be presented to the Revenue Commissioners now though, before registering.

Most conveyancing solicitors would take this on - but you would have to pay them. The Law Society may have some suggestions.

jonwin02

Hi juke,
Still not totally convinced, must be some reason it was not completed before.
Law society were"nt helpful.
Would you know if it is a full conveyance or partial and approx cost?

Surley since all works were paid for, insurance should cover the costs

juke

jonwin02 wrote: »

Still not totally convinced, must be some reason it was not completed before.

There could be any number of reasons. It could simply be an oversight. Whilst problems in registration occur, they are in the minority - especially with new developments, in my experience.

jonwin02 wrote: »

Law society were"nt helpful.
Would you know if it is a full conveyance or partial and approx cost?

Surley since all works were paid for, insurance should cover the costs

Insurance - when did he die, did he have run off cover, did the Law Society indicate insurance would cover the costs?
I wouldn't bank on it, I'm afraid.

You should also find out from the Law Society if the outlays you paid to your solicitor (ie Land Registry fees etc) are in his client account, in your name. If not, you'll have to stump up for these again aswell.

Costs - loaded question - depends on what you need the solicitor to do:
eg stamp and register the deed/mortgage
or
stamp & register the deed/mortgage, and provide a certificate of title to your lender (your lender will look for this).

The latter - would involve a full investigation of the title deeds (including planning, any possible rights of way/wayleaves for access to the estate and services) - and would be much more extensive work - and the costs would I estimate, be the equivalent as if you were buying from scratch now.

The former - if there's no major problems, I'd estimate c. €500.00 plus vat. There's probably solicitors who'd do it for less.

Unfortunately, until a new solicitor takes over the file, and actually sees the deeds, any estimate is just that - an estimate.

You're in a lousy position. If the Law Society is not helpful in recommending another solicitor, the best advice I can offer is try get a recommendation from family/friends - not random people on the internet.

Best of luck

Marcusm

jonwin02 wrote: »

Hi juke,
Still not totally convinced, must be some reason it was not completed before.
Law society were"nt helpful.
Would you know if it is a full conveyance or partial and approx cost?

Surley since all works were paid for, insurance should cover the costs

Based on what you have written it looks that you have purchased a newly built house and that this was documented by a purchase of the land and a building contract for the actual construction. Was this house newly built? If so, was it a one off or part of a development? If part of a development, you are likely to be able to find solicitors familiar with the documents through your neigbours. It's very disappointing if the Law Society is not being helpful as this is a clear case f negligence irrespective of how nice your solicitor was. If he has died and there are irregularities in his practice, I would expect the Law Society as the applicable body to be seeking to sort them out. You need to establish whether they have informed the bank/lender as well as informing you. If they felt that they had a need to inform you, they should have had a similar obligation to the bank/lender. THis is potentially a double edged sword, the bank/lender might take responsibility for sorting it out as they are most at risk at the moment as you could borrow against the property once it's registered in your name if they haven't sdorted out the mortgage before then (although you would be breaking your loan to do so). However, a less than scrupulous bank could use this as an excuse to call your loan now. I doubt that this would happen but important to sort it out.

jonwin02

Solicitor wants 1200+vat+200 for outlays to sort out the reg.
First three solicitors did"nt want to know.
He says he has to argue case for stamp duty with revenue but almost sure none due.
I know he"s bull****ting me but what do you do,looks like nobody wants to do it.
I find it incredeulous that not one of the four could tell me for sure if there was duty due or not.
As a profession there some shower.

juke

jonwin02 wrote: »

I find it incredeulous that not one of the four could tell me for sure if there was duty due or not.
As a profession there some shower.

Given Stamp Duty rates have changed many times since 2006, what's incredulous about that?
Did you ring the Revenue Commissioners and ask them?

Marcusm

I'm afraid that it's not so surprising that they are unwilling to tell you without being engaged and it has little to do with rates changing since 2006. You did not have a simple house purchase for an amount under the stampduty threshold but, whether you realised it or not, you had a composite of a site purchase contract and a building contract for the house. No solicitor should advise you until they have read the documents.

You're not going to have much choice unless you want to leave the house unregistered. However, I think that the Law Society should be seeking to assist you. If you have the contact details of the person who informed you that they were administering the practice, I suggest the following course of action:

Call them asking for their contact details and state that you need to send them a formal communication that you are putting them on notice that you have a claim against the practice, its insurance and any compensation fund in respect of negligence amounting to no less than a return of the previously paid fee as a result of the practice's failure to complete the contract (the one the solicitor had with you to provide services).

If they do not help beyond providing the contact details, consider whether, in the absence of them helping you, whether you can afford to pay the full amount to get the matter sorted. You need to take into account the true value of the property, what your financial position is, etc. If you cannot comfortably pay it, you probably have nothing to lose by approaching your lender to inform them of the position and asking them to pay for at least a portion of the costs. Arguably they are in a worse position that you. You are in possession of the house albeit that you are not the registered owner and it seems unlikely that anyone has legal standing to evict you from it. The bank, however, until the contract is registered and the mortgage registered have no means to enforce foreclosure or repossession proceedings against you.

Clearly you don't want them to try and take the house off you and in any event to do that they would have to go through the whole registration process!! (Hilarious in some ways.)

One potential downside I see is that the loan is in breach albeit no fault of yours. Whether they could try and force early repayment will depend on the terms of the loan. In most circumstances, negative equity, limited other assets, this would not be int he bank's interests.

This is not legal advice but practical advice about how you might look to get legal advice and who might pay for it.

Marcusm

Apologies for the double post but your treatment has frustrated me enough to do some research. Follow this link to the Law Society publication on the compensation fund.

http://www.lawsociety.ie/Pages/Compensation-Fund/

It states that it will bear the cost of a solicitor completing a conveyance where another members has failed to do so after you have paid them. It states that it will pay a particular scale rate with which the solicitor you have discussed the case should be familiar.

Perhaps instead of the taking the longer route I mentioned above, it is worthwhile pointing this out to your prospective solicitor. It may be that he's not interested in undertaking the work on this basis but that would not be very professional considering it is the recommended approach of his regulatory body.

jonwin02

2 or 3 changes in 5 years in five years and you cant keep up,
how much are we paying you again, go on , tell us how much per hour you"re on for conveyancing.

jonwin02

sorry marcus that last comment was"nt aimed at you,very frustrated at the whole thing.
much appreciated

juke

jonwin02 wrote: »

2 or 3 changes in 5 years in five years and you cant keep up,
how much are we paying you again, go on , tell us how much per hour you"re on for conveyancing.

Irrelevant and I didn't say I cant keep up. I already said what I think the Stamp Duty liability is.

You are on here because you want free advice - well with your attitude, I'm bowing out.