The cash amount was not included in the contract. We did not advise our solicitor of this payment at the time.
Again, I must reiterate that it was not our suggestion to pay the cash amount, we did not want to pay cash (and neither did we have cash) but when we were initially asked to pay cash and refused, the developer refused to sell us the site. We were not trying to evade stamp duty. The stamp duty that was initially "saved" was €2,500 - hardly a large amount. It was the developer that was trying to evade tax.
The reason that the Revenue didn't impose fines or interest is because they could see that we were not the ones who instigated the cash payment - the developer had insisted on cash from all other sites sold in the same development. He did have to pay fines and interest. We made a declaration to Revenue before we appeared in court on the matter.
We have not had to pay any legal costs to date and have had our legal costs todate awarded to us in the Circuit Court before the Judge had even heard the case (it was always down for mention only). The developers barrister was quite surprised by the Judges decision to award costs before hearing the case but the developer was continuosly in breach of court orders and lying in court so the Judge lost his patience with him.