Will I have to pay higher-rate stamp duty on my new home?

Q I’ve been forced to buy a property as I left the marital home two years ago. No official separation order was filed because my husband went to India but I’ve not lived with him for two years. I didn’t own the marital home as he jointly owned it with his mother.

I’ve now found a place I like and had an offer accepted on it and want to know how the new rules on stamp duty will affect me and whether it matters that I complete the sale this side of 1 April or the other. AP

A Yours is one of several questions I’ve been asked about the planned higher rates of stamp duty land tax (SDLT) on purchases of additional properties. The changes will mean that from 1 April, anyone buying an additional property will pay a SDLT rate three percentage points higher than the standard rate.

The consultation closed on Monday and the final rules will be announced in the budget on 16 March. Under the proposed rules, you might have to pay the higher rates of SDLT on the place you want to buy. This is because it has been proposed that married couples and civil partners are treated as one unit unless they are separated either under a court order or by a formal Deed of Separation executed under a seal.

If a couple is not formally separated – even if, as in your case, the relationship has clearly broken down – and if either of you owns property, the purchase of another property will count as an additional property and so attract higher-rate SDLT. To be on the safe side and avoid the higher rates, you need to complete the purchase before 1 April 2016.

The same advice applies to someone who already owns property but is buying another with a first-time-buyer partner. The fact that the partner is a first-time buyer makes no difference to the fact that the prospective jointly owned property still counts as an additional property for one of them and so will attract higher rates of SDLT – on the whole cost – if purchased after 1 April. This also hits parents helping a child on to the property ladder by buying jointly with their offspring (assuming they already own their home). But parents who hand over cash towards a property purchase and/or act as a guarantor on the child’s mortgage won’t be affected.

The good news for the “completely confused” first-time buyer on a tight budget who wrote and asked if she would be affected by the higher SDLT rates is that the answer is, no, you won’t be.