Stamp Duty and Solicitors Fees

i have a bit of a problem......i sold my first house and bought a new house 12 mths ago....Auctioneer and solicitor both said to me that there was no stamp duty on the house. i've asked the solicitor verbally over the last year whether there was stamp duty or not and i have this on email from her as well saying that there was no stamp duty payable and this was the attraction in buying the property in the first instance.....so last week when i was settling solicitors bill up to get keys the solicitor sends me a bill of €15k euro !!!!....lets say i was due to pay 5k for her fees....the other 10k was made up of a 5k booking deposit that i paid myself to builder that she now wanted to me to pay her.what a joke!..(she said she was sorry she included this that this was a typo!).it gets better and the other 5k was for stamp duty that she paid in the first week of Jan'07 on my behalf but she forgot to tell me (in her own words) and this after she telling me i didn't have to pay any stamp duty all year !!!.....don't know what to think ...i wonder is she scamming me???...there was no way i would have bought the house if i had known i had to pay stamp duty and i made this quite clear.....Should i seek out legal advise from another solicitor?...the builder himself tells me no one else in this development is paying stamp duty .....it looks like my house is above floor space and that i should in fact be paying a portion of stamp duty but why im seething with anger is why both auctioneer and solicitor (mainly solicitor) have been telling me all year that there was no duty payable and i only find out the day i get the bill that in fact she paid it without telling me ...why would she do this???...Can anyone tell me should a solicitor do this?......it all stinks to be honest?....Much appreciated if i could get a bit of feedback on this....because its a right mess....i've got no prob paying this but when your been given bad information and advice its hard to take....she is putting big pressure on me now sending me solicitors letters and the works to pay this duty ....what should i do?

As a solicitor I find that very odd alright. I'd complain to the Law Society in the first place. It's strange that she paid it herself though she might have realised that you should have paid it in the firt place and if you pay more than 30 days after closing then there are addittioanl penalties.

How much was the property? Have you confirmed that it doesn't actually have a floor area cert?

Would you have bought it if you had realised there was duty payable?

I'd be threatening both the auctioneer and the solicitor however auctioneers usually just plead ignorance and get away with it!

Stifster

The price of the house was 315k and i've now confirmed that there is no floor area cert. I wouldn't have bought this house if i had known i had to pay stamp duty.

i had a word alright with the auctioneer and they said the information they got was incorrect and he apologised for this saying he got his wires crossed......fat lot of good that is to me now !!!...he also pushed the blame game on to solicitor saying that at the end of the day its their responsibility and not the auctioneer.....i disagree !...when i was looking at house in the first place auctioneer made it clear that in the development there was no stamp duty payable.

I suppose technically he is right but an auctioneer selling a development should know the Stamp Duty situation for all of the properties. That's what annoys me about auctioneers they take all the benefits and none of the risks of buying and selling!

Complain to the Law Society, complain to the IAVA. Ignorance of the law is no defence but someone somewhere should ahve told you if there was or was not a Floor area cert. Solicitor wouldn't know until after booking deposit paid but before contracts signed.

Happened to me once in reverse, told client no FAC as there wasn't one with the contracts, turned out there should have been. Client pleased to save 20k oddly enough.

Solicitor didn't know if there was a floor cert until i asked her when i spotted stamp duty in my bill last week (thats 12 mths after i signed contracts)!!!...to be honest i reckon she didn't even check to find out!!....she also told me in an email 6 mths after i paid booking deposit that no stamp duty was payable as well as several times verbally...its a bit of a drag when i didn't budget in this first day!...it would have been ok if i was advised of this from day 1 !...fairly hard done by to be honest i reckon...and the fee that i owed her she didn't do a tap for...coz she never answered my calls or emails .....i've paid her all outstanding fees to-date except the stamp duty which she is now hammering down my door for ...she's an absolute joke!

Could you post the exact figures which are on the building agreement and the contract on this thread? Are you sure the solicitor deduced the VAT on the contracts before she calculated stamp duty?

I'm led to believe by making enquiries with builder that not only did my solicitor pay stamp duty on my behalf without telling me (after telling me there was none payable) , she never took the vat off the value of the site when calculating the stamp duty!....it just gets better and better!!

Without looking at the figures I cant say whether you are liable for stamp duty or not. However if your solicitor over payed stamp duty (or indeed if stamp duty was paid when it should not have been) then it is her problem and she should take it up with the Revenue . I would contact her immediately to clarify how she calculated the S.D.