Stamp Duty Land Tax · England & Northern Ireland
Specialist SDLT advice for property transactions where the treatment is not obvious. Reviewed on your documents and your facts, with a fixed fee agreed before we start, and never a fee that depends on the answer.
Proportion
Fees are the smallest number in this conversation. It is worth seeing the others before deciding whether the question is worth asking.
Five per cent of the whole consideration, where the conditions for the higher rates are met. Whether they are met is the question, and it is not always the one people assume.
Basis: £400,000 residential purchase, higher rates for additional dwellings at 5%, rates as at 16 August 2026.Residential at the higher rates comes to £93,750. The same price treated as mixed use comes to £39,500. Which one is right depends on the facts and the evidence, not on preference.
Basis: £1,000,000 freehold. Residential bands plus the 5% surcharge against non-residential and mixed use bands, rates as at 16 August 2026.That is the window to get it right, not the window to start thinking about it. Which is why the analysis belongs before completion rather than after.
Basis: statutory filing and payment deadline, England and Northern Ireland, as at 16 August 2026.A written opinion at £1,500 plus VAT is around 3% of the gap between the top and bottom bar.
Every figure on this page is a worked illustration on the stated assumptions. It is not a prediction of your position, it is not advice, and the answer on any real transaction depends entirely on its own facts, documents and effective date. Rates and thresholds reviewed 16 August 2026.
The gap
Stamp duty is self-assessed, which means the return is legally yours even though you will almost certainly never see it. A purchase passes through several pairs of hands and the analysis tends to fall between them.
Retainers increasingly say calculation only, with wider stamp duty advice expressly excluded. That is a sensible scope decision. It also leaves the analysis unowned.
By the time the transaction reaches a year end, the filing window has closed and the options have narrowed considerably.
A rate table cannot see a linked transaction, a mixed use element, a partnership, a connected party, or where you were living last March.
How we work
SDLT is all we do. Not a line on a services page, not something picked up between accounts deadlines. Every matter that comes through is a stamp duty question, and that is how you build the pattern recognition these transactions need.
Our fee is fixed, published, and identical whether the answer saves you money or confirms the original return was right. An adviser whose income depends on finding a refund is the wrong adviser to ask whether there is one.
The answer comes from the contract, the title, the dates and the ownership position, not from a calculator or a category. We ask for the documents because without them there is nothing to advise on.
If the facts do not support a position, we say so in writing. If a matter is outside our competence, our insurance or our registration, we say that too and, where we can, point you to someone better placed.
Where we help
Each has its own rules, its own traps and its own evidence requirements. Individual situation pages are added only when complete.
How it works
Fifteen minutes on the transaction. No advice given and no engagement begins at this stage.
If we can help, you get the scope, the fixed fee and written engagement terms before anything else happens.
A short set of questions and the documents needed for the agreed work. The analysis is only as good as what it is built on.
A reasoned position you can act on, keep on file, and put in front of your solicitor or HMRC.
Fees
The fee is the same whether the conclusion is that you overpaid, that you underpaid, or that the original return was right all along.
Common questions
Check the scope section of your retainer letter. If it says the firm will calculate and submit the SDLT return, that is what you have bought. An increasing number of retainers now go further and expressly exclude advice on reliefs, surcharges and complex treatment. If yours does, nobody in your chain is being paid to answer the tax question, and it is worth knowing that before you exchange rather than after.
No. The fee is fixed, published on the pricing page, and identical whatever the conclusion. We think an adviser whose income depends on finding a refund is the wrong person to ask whether there is one.
That is a common outcome and it is worth paying for. You end up with a written, reasoned position on file, which is exactly what you want if the return is ever looked at. The fee is the same either way and we will say so plainly rather than manufacturing a question to justify the invoice.
It can be. Property interests held anywhere in the world may be relevant to the higher rates test, subject to the detailed rules and to the facts of the particular holding. This is one of the most common things people do not think to mention.
Standards
We do not promote tax avoidance schemes, artificial arrangements or aggressive interpretations of the law. We work to HMRC's Standard for Agents and to the ethical standards of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Where the facts do not support a position, we say so, and we put it in writing.
Stamp duty is a self-assessed tax. The purchaser remains legally responsible for the return, including where an agent prepares it. HMRC may open an enquiry into a return or an amendment, and where a position is found to be incorrect the tax is repayable with interest and penalties may apply. No outcome can be guaranteed, and any position we advise on depends entirely on the facts and documents supplied.
Clarity before completion
A free case check. No advice given, no engagement begun, and nothing taken from you unless we take the matter on.