Will I incur stamp duty if I purchase the old family home?

[jodydublin]

Hi
My father passed away recently leaving his house between myself and 3 siblings. I am considering buying the house and paying off my siblings their equal share.

First question is will I incur stamp duty on this transaction? The estate is going to probate at the moment.

Second question is can my siblings sign over the house to me and then I can privately pay them their due amount and if so will this mean I dont incur stamp duty?

Its only a small house - value €320,000

Thanks in advance

 

[MOB]

Ask your solicitor. Depending on the circumstances (and possibly depending on the wording of your father's will) it probably can be done without stamp duty. There is a technical legal argument that the transaction should be liable to stamp duty - and some practitioners would take the view that it should be submitted for stamping, but opinions and circumstances vary. The permutations are too many for me to be able to give details on all scenarios, but your solicitor will (well, certainly should) be able to give fact-specific advice.

Any arrangement for you to 'privately pay' is simple evasion. Don't do it. Either you structure the deal to legally avoid stamp duty or you pay it.

The maximum stamp duty exposure is only around €4k anyway. (Actually you could manage to structure it so that the stamp duty is around €8k, but that would be really stupid).

 

[jodydublin]

Thanks for the reply. Thats very helpful indeed. I will talk to my solicitor about it. Just to confirm - I didnt mean that I wanted to do something underhand by privately paying off my siblings lest anyone think I was trying to do something illegal! I just wasnt sure whether it was legal and above board to do it this way.
Many thanks again for the response.