How much stamp duty is payable on a house costing £275,000 in England?
Is it paid by the seller or the buyer?

Hello Michael

The buyer pays the stamp duty. If you're the buyer, I'm sorry to have
to tell you that a £275,000 house will cost you £8,250 in stamp duty.

Here's some information from the Inland Revenue's website:

"Q. What are the current rates of stamp duty?

 A. They are:-

    * Nil - up to £60,000
    * 1% over £60,000 but not more than £250,000
    * 3% over £250,000 but not more than £500,000
    * 4% over £500,000 "

You can find their list of Frequently Asked Questions at:
http://www.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/so/faqs.htm

Note that £250,001 is the point at which a much higher rate of tax
kicks in. A house costing £249,000 attracts stamp duty of only £2,490.

If you want to check stamp duty costs for other properties, you can
use this:

Stamp Duty Calculator
http://money.msn.co.uk/tax/Calculate_4_/Miscellaneous/CalcStampduty/default.asp
 
Further information on stamp duty can be found here:
http://www.taxcentral.co.uk/taxcentral/home/reference/pockettaxguide/taxguidestampduty/default.asp


I hope this is helpful but please feel free to request clarification
if anything needs further explanation.

Regards - Leli


search used:
"stamp duty"
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Clarification of Answer by leli-ga on 04 Dec 2002 01:59 PST

Thanks for the stars. Good luck with buying your house.

Great and very fast advice. Though the answer was a bit of a shock :)

one of the subtle ways round this is to buy the house for 249,995 and
then offer 25,005 for the contents as stamp duty only applies to the
structure of the house. You have to be a bit careful as obviously this
has to be 'reasonable' in the eyes of the tax man. Another option
sometimes used is to resort to the 'brown envelope' to make up the
shortfall - again, care is cautioned!

Good Luck