Stamp duty refunds?

[stormrogue75]

Hi I have just received a letter from a claims company saying that when I bought my house it was in an area classed as disadvantaged so the stamp duty was not required as the value was under 150k . Does anyone know if this is genuine I have looked on the hmrc site and I do live in the disadvantaged area under my postcode but do the refunds exist? The claim company say its a no refund no fee or 30% of any refund they get for me but I havent been able to find much info on the refund side any advice would be appreciated .

[Buenchico]

The first bit of this post will seem to be completely unrelated to your question, but please stick with it. (It will, hopefully, make sense eventually!).

Back in the early 1990s I worked, on a 'commission only' basis, for a firm that claimed that they could get reductions in people's business rates because "we've identified probable errors in the way that the rateable value has been assigned to your property". The telephone canvassers (who were also paid only on commission) targeted businesses at random (despite the claim that they were aware of a particular problem in the area where the business was located). Potential customers were asked to pay a fee (starting at £125 for a small shop, for example) which they were guaranteed that they'd get back, in full, if the company was unable to secure a refund.

The appeals process was genuinely slow, so when people complained (many months after parting with their money) that they'd heard nothing about their appeal, the company would just blame the Valuation Office (even though many appeals wouldn't even have been started by that time).

Eventually, surprise, surprise (a few months after I stopped working for them), the company went into liquidation, leaving thousands of customers out of pocket (but also leaving the directors extremely well off).

I later found out;
(a) that the directors had operated several similar businesses (where they claimed to be able to get people refunds from councils or from Government bodies), with exactly the same outcome ; and that
(b) that company was only one of dozens that did exactly the same thing.

Now, I wonder if you can see why alarm bells started ringing in my head when I read your post?

My advice is that you should definitely not touch the company which approached you, even with the proverbial bargepole. Then you should try to find out exactly what Stamp Duty Land Tax you actua

[Buenchico]

. . . actually paid (if any). If, at that stage, you think that you might possibly have paid out money that you shouldn't have, you should approach HMRC directly and ask about their appeals procedure.

Chris

[stormrogue75]

Hi Chris thanks for your answer I havent contacted the claims company as I wanted to see if there was any truth behind it but there isnt any info round. I have been on the HMRC site but it only has links for refunds/ appeals on present stamp duty payments there is nothing on backdated appeals I will see if I can get an email to someone there to let me know where I stand. There was a post on money saving expert site from someone who went through her solicicitors and got her refund but Ive emailed the poster but had no reply so not sure if this was genuine.

[Eve]

How long ago did you buy your house?

If a refund is possible then I'd go after it yourself if you can rather than going through a claims company having seen some of the rip off merchants and out and out fraudsters of recent times (coal claims, consumer credit (PPI misselling etc...), bank charges, even some general accident).

Do your research and make sure you are fully informed first though. Check the rate at the time your bought to ensure you did pay needlessly. I would check with your solicitors first as if they paid stamp duty when it wasn't due then I'd have thought there could be an emphasis of them to sort it out (I take it they requested the money from you and paid it to HMRC on your behalf?).

They should have been aware of rates and how to check for disadvantaged area relief (just a postcode/ward search on the website as you have seen yourself). There is also a question on the SDLT forms (depending on when you purchased) asking if relief if being claimed as at least a prompt to check.

I do wonder how they got your details though. Fair enough, recent purchase prices are on the title register but how do they know if you paid SDLT or not unless they are just chancing it with people who live in disadvantaged areas, looking at purchase prices on sites like netprices etc...

[Eve]

Seems the law is going to change...

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/budget2010/bn35.pdf

[telefoto]

you can do it your self hun through the hmrc site , you get the address from their site and write to them saying you believe your entitled to a refund
put your address who purchased it how much property was bough for and when ...they may need extra paper work but you can get this from your solicitor that dealt with your purchase... better off doing it your self then you wont need to pay any one except maybe the solicitor for digging out the relevant paper work