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Hi,
I'd be really grateful for advice on our situation from conveyancing experts:
We recently moved back to the UK from Spain, and are starting again on the housing ladder. We're blessed to have received an inheritance that may just give us enough of a deposit to get a mortgage and buy something.
We own a tumbledown property in Spain, in a difficult area, within a still pretty slow market. If it were possible to sell it, we'd lose 1,000's, as we bought near the peak of the Spanish 'boom' in 2004. So, not planning to do that. The state it's in, and the location, also make it impossible to rent out.
We previously owned a UK property, so are obviously not first time buyers.
The current SDLT rates are eye-watering for multiple property owners, even though we are buying to live in not to let.
My thought is this: it's completely reasonable to expect that the Spanish house is worth less than the Govt's £40,000 value limit for SDLT, which would mean we could buy in the UK without declaring ownership of it (I think).
- Does anyone know what happens in practise with declaring / providing valuation evidence etc through the UK conveyancing process?
- Is it entirely down to HMRC to query the buyer's tax declaration?
- Is it common that HMRC would ask for / seek valuation of a foreign property, and how might they go about that?
Many thanks!
Jon
I'd be really grateful for advice on our situation from conveyancing experts:
We recently moved back to the UK from Spain, and are starting again on the housing ladder. We're blessed to have received an inheritance that may just give us enough of a deposit to get a mortgage and buy something.
We own a tumbledown property in Spain, in a difficult area, within a still pretty slow market. If it were possible to sell it, we'd lose 1,000's, as we bought near the peak of the Spanish 'boom' in 2004. So, not planning to do that. The state it's in, and the location, also make it impossible to rent out.
We previously owned a UK property, so are obviously not first time buyers.
The current SDLT rates are eye-watering for multiple property owners, even though we are buying to live in not to let.
My thought is this: it's completely reasonable to expect that the Spanish house is worth less than the Govt's £40,000 value limit for SDLT, which would mean we could buy in the UK without declaring ownership of it (I think).
- Does anyone know what happens in practise with declaring / providing valuation evidence etc through the UK conveyancing process?
- Is it entirely down to HMRC to query the buyer's tax declaration?
- Is it common that HMRC would ask for / seek valuation of a foreign property, and how might they go about that?
Many thanks!
Jon
