Issue about LTP pre-contract enquiries

c00114110

Hi,

I am buying a property, the deal is close to exchange contract.
However vendor solicitor gave us LPT certificate but refused to provide Certificate of Discharge from Household Charge. Vendor solicitor insisted that Household Charge is included in the LPT, but my solicitor request a proper Household Charge certificate.

So the deal is blocked. I want to know what's the worst case if go ahead the deal without Household Charge certificate? In general, does vendor have to provide proper Household charge if vendor already furnish LPT certificate ?

Does anyone come through this?

NinjaTruncs

Is it the NPPR you are thinking of? We're selling our apartment at the moment and have to complete a declaration of exemption from the NPPR. If you ring your local council they should be able to email you the form which you need to fill out and have it signed but a Commissioner of Oath/Solicitor and send in into your council who will then send you a certificate of compliance.

Edit, I took it you were selling, since you're buying if the NPPR is due and hasn't been paid you may be liable, I'm not sure why the seller won't provide it as it's fairly easy to obtain.

Kelly06

c00114110 wrote: »

Hi,

I am buying a property, the deal is close to exchange contract.
However vendor solicitor gave us LPT certificate but refused to provide Certificate of Discharge from Household Charge. Vendor solicitor insisted that Household Charge is included in the LPT, but my solicitor request a proper Household Charge certificate.

So the deal is blocked. I want to know what's the worst case if go ahead the deal without Household Charge certificate? In general, does vendor have to provide proper Household charge if vendor already furnish LPT certificate ?

Does anyone come through this?

Any unpaid house hold charge or Nppr charge is a charge on property for a period of 12 years from the due date for payment of the charge. Under legislation The vendor is obliged to give to the purchaser a certificate of discharge, cert of waiver or cert of exemption in respect of the house hold charge. You solicitor is completely correct. The law society has issued practice notes for practitioners in relation to this.

c00114110

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

Is it the NPPR you are thinking of? We're selling our apartment at the moment and have to complete a declaration of exemption from the NPPR. If you ring your local council they should be able to email you the form which you need to fill out and have it signed but a Commissioner of Oath/Solicitor and send in into your council who will then send you a certificate of compliance.

Edit, I took it you were selling, since you're buying if the NPPR is due and hasn't been paid you may be liable, I'm not sure why the seller won't provide it as it's fairly easy to obtain.

Yes, I am buying a property. How long does it take to get the certificate in your case?

c00114110

Kelly06 wrote: »

Any unpaid house hold charge or Nppr charge is a charge on property for a period of 12 years from the due date for payment of the charge. Under legislation The vendor is obliged to give to the purchaser a certificate of discharge, cert of waiver or cert of exemption in respect of the house hold charge. You solicitor is completely correct. The law society has issued practice notes for practitioners in relation to this.

Thanks very much for your answer. my solicitor didn't understand why vendor solicitor refuse to provide Household Charge. My solicitor said from LPT receipt, vendor should pay household charge already and it shouldn't have any problem to provide Household Charge cert. But vendor solicitor refuse the request and gave this following sentence.
"From the LPT receipt we sent to you, you will see it encompasses the receipt for Household Charge and both balances stand at nil".

Does it enough to go ahead the deal without proper Household Charge cert?

Kelly06

c00114110 wrote: »

Thanks very much for your answer. my solicitor didn't understand why vendor solicitor refuse to provide Household Charge. My solicitor said from LPT receipt, vendor should pay household charge already and it shouldn't have any problem to provide Household Charge cert. But vendor solicitor refuse the request and gave this following sentence.
"From the LPT receipt we sent to you, you will see it encompasses the receipt for Household Charge and both balances stand at nil".

Does it enough to go ahead the deal without proper Household Charge cert?

No your solicitor is entirely correct and will refer the vendors solicitor to the law society practice note. An up to date receipt or declaration is not sufficient and the relevant certificate must be furnished.

NinjaTruncs

c00114110 wrote: »

Yes, I am buying a property. How long does it take to get the certificate in your case?

I haven't gotten mine yet, my solicitor is giving an assurance to the buyers solicitor that all is in order so as not to delay the deal. As i understand it this assurance make my solicitor liable for any costs if NPPR is due and I refused to pay it. Some/Many solicitors may not be willing to make such an assurance and as such would block the deal until the cert is ready.

Kelly06

NinjaTruncs wrote: »

I haven't gotten mine yet, my solicitor is giving an assurance to the buyers solicitor that all is in order so as not to delay the deal. As i understand it this assurance make my solicitor liable for any costs if NPPR is due and I refused to pay it. Some/Many solicitors may not be willing to make such an assurance and as such would block the deal until the cert is ready.

Hey, NPPR and HHC are two different taxes.

HHC refers to the €100 payment every house hold had to pay a couple of years back.

NPPR refers to a charge that was levied I think around 2009 on properties that were not the principal private residence of the owner.

PetuniaT

When I sold my property last year, I went onto revenue online services and printed off a statement showing the LPT for the years 2013-2014. On this statement there is a Household Charge arrears section which had a footnote that their records indicate that I had satisfied the household charge liability. This was sufficient for the purchasers solicitors to proceed with. I didn't need to furnish a separate certificate.

Kelly06

http://www.lawsociety.ie/Documents/committees/conveyancing/CertificatesOfWaiver-etc-notApply-JanFeb2014.pdf

There is the law society guideline on what's required in each property transaction for each of the taxes.

mortimer33

PetuniaT wrote: »

When I sold my property last year, I went onto revenue online services and printed off a statement showing the LPT for the years 2013-2014. On this statement there is a Household Charge arrears section which had a footnote that their records indicate that I had satisfied the household charge liability. This was sufficient for the purchasers solicitors to proceed with. I didn't need to furnish a separate certificate.

This was sufficient for my sale too..

c00114110

I got some sense. As Kelly06 said, it is on law society practise note, so vendor solicitor has to provide as my solicitor request it on pre-contract enquiries. However HHC is noted on LPT, so some solicitor maybe not strict on it.

Hence my solicitor did right thing, and vendor solicitor has to comply with it.

In this stage, I want to know if I decide to go ahead with the deal without the Household Charge Cert, is that right I need to pay few hundreds euro extra in the worst case, or may have other consequence?

NinjaTruncs

Kelly06 wrote: »

Hey, NPPR and HHC are two different taxes.

HHC refers to the €100 payment every house hold had to pay a couple of years back.

NPPR refers to a charge that was levied I think around 2009 on properties that were not the principal private residence of the owner.

thanks for pointing that out,I better double check with my solicitor what they want me to get.

Kelly06

c00114110 wrote: »

I got some sense. As Kelly06 said, it is on law society practise note, so vendor solicitor has to provide as my solicitor request it on pre-contract enquiries. However HHC is noted on LPT, so some solicitor maybe not strict on it.

Hence my solicitor did right thing, and vendor solicitor has to comply with it.

In this stage, I want to know if I decide to go ahead with the deal without the Household Charge Cert, is that right I need to pay few hundreds euro extra in the worst case, or may have other consequence?

No one can really give you that advice here. If your sure that it's paid then you are satisfied that the liability for the tax will not attach itself to the property. Law society practice directions are issued by the law society conceyancing committee as best practice for solicitors to follow.

The previous two posters who posted that a receipt was sufficient in their case this is probably because the purchasers silicitor was not aware of the practice direction. It is a matter for the purchaser to satisfy them selves as to the position in relation to these charges before completion of the sale. The practice directions are best practice and should be adhered to.

Kelly06

Kelly06 wrote: »

No one can really give you that advice here. If your sure that it's paid then you are satisfied that the liability for the tax will not attach itself to the property. Law society practice directions are issued by the law society conceyancing committee as best practice for solicitors to follow.

The previous two posters who posted that a receipt was sufficient in their case this is probably because the purchasers silicitor was not aware of the practice direction. It is a matter for the purchaser to satisfy them selves as to the position in relation to these charges before completion of the sale. The practice directions are best practice and should be adhered to.

I just thought , a consequence could be that if you come to sell this property if it's within the 12 years from the date of the charge you will be running round trying to sort out the certificate yourself. There is a lot of confusion about these charges out there and how to deal with them among conveyancers. If you get the certificate it will stay with your title deeds and can be handed over if you dispose of the property in the future. Best of luck

c00114110

Thanks very much for your advise. I will keep it in mind.

c00114110

Vendor Solicitor eventually response Household Charge Cert request and said come back to me soon.

Does anyone know how long will take to query Household Charge Cert and change LPT band?

Kelly06

c00114110 wrote: »

Vendor Solicitor eventually response Household Charge Cert request and said come back to me soon.

Does anyone know how long will take to query Household Charge Cert and change LPT band?

House Hold Charge cert is issued by the local authority I think. The LPT band is revenue , sorry I've no idea of timeframes

April 73

You can change the LPT band upwards immediately online & pay by debit or credit card. You can immediately then print your receipts.

If you wish Revenue to grant a general clearance (if the price you're selling at is signicantly higher than you declared in May 2013) then you need a LPT5 form & justification for why the price differs. I used info from the property price register & house price info published by a national newspaper to apply for general clearance recently. I got it a week after submitting the documentation.

Little Miss Cutie

April 73 wrote: »

You can change the LPT band upwards immediately online & pay by debit or credit card. You can immediately then print your receipts.

If you wish Revenue to grant a general clearance (if the price you're selling at is signicantly higher than you declared in May 2013) then you need a LPT5 form & justification for why the price differs. I used info from the property price register & house price info published by a national newspaper to apply for general clearance recently. I got it a week after submitting the documentation.

Regarding this point we recently closed on a house with the LPT5 clearance outstanding.

In the end LPT General clearance was not granted and we had to get the vendor to pay us for the period of underpayment, which went back and forth through our solicitors and was a total pain!!

c00114110

That's great you can contact to the vendor straight way.

In my case, because vendor solicitor refused to provide Household charge cert without any reason in the beginning. so my solicitor really worry about it. He said cannot close the deal without have the cert.

I am waiting vendor reply the Household charge two weeks already. I think they are applying the cert, but don't know how long it will take. Very frustrating .