With PII premiums rising quarter on quarter, ‘claims farms’ filing multiple claims on behalf of clients who think they might have missed out on a juicy SDLT relief, and even the Law Society getting in on the act with new requirements for lawyers in their CQS guidelines, SDLT is no longer a subject firm can afford to ignore.

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Here are our top five tips for avoiding costly errors and keeping your firm on the right side of the rules (and your clients).

1. Don’t take anything for granted

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Often when a relief is missed it comes down to a detail that wasn’t necessarily included in the sales particulars or even the questionnaires filled in by the vendor.

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Perhaps the property has a completely separate annex.

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Maybe there’s an informal arrangement with a local farmer to use land attached to the property for grazing which has been long-established.

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Whatever it is, small details can make huge differences to the potential stamp duty bill.

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Make sure you don’t get caught out!

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2. Double Check your Workings

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Unless your firm is lucky enough to have its own in-house tax department, it’s unlikely that anyone will be a tax expert. And with Stamp Duty being a self-assessed tax involving a detailed return on the client’s behalf and a personal liability to them, you really want to make sure that you get it right.

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Whether it’s an ad-hoc arrangement with a local tax adviser firm or something a bit more formal, it’s worth forging a partnership with an expert firm to make sure you’re getting it right.

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3. Check your case files

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It’s all very well being proactive with new cases, but a lot of the issues we are seeing firms have related to historical cases which are being dredged up by claims firms.

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Get ahead of the issue by digging back through the last four years of your case files and auditing the SDLT returns to make sure they were done correctly – there are firms who will help with this if required.

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A client who receives a call from you proactively saying you’ve found they may be owed a refund is likely to be a lot happier with your firm than one who’s been approached with the same information by a third party.

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4. Get up to date (and stay there)

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SDLT is one of the most rapidly altering and complex taxes on the UK statute books, with successive governments tweaking and adding to it year after year.

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In the past eighteen months alone we’ve had a Stamp Duty ‘Holiday’ and the introduction of a new ‘surcharge’ aimed at non-UK resident purchasers.

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Just because you memorised all the rules five years ago doesn’t mean they don’t look very different now, and missing a change could result in your client underpaying and having issues down the line.

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5. Get some direction with Compass

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Of course, the easiest way to take care of all the above is to get Compass for your firm.

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Compass is a Stamp Duty Calculator that will successfully analyse all variables of a purchase based on the latest legislation, and will refer you to a specialist adviser in the unlikely event of a case being just too complex.

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