Stamp duty on site (Not connected to building agreement)

johnnybegood

Registered User
Messages
122
Hi all,

Have been through the numerous posts regarding this topic and as far as i can surmise the following relates to my brother as he is in this position:

My brother is a FTB. He wishes to purchase a site from a neighbour for circa €250k. Unfortuntaly this will be subject to SD at 9% (regardless of the fact he is FTB as it is deemed to be non residential) as there is no connected agreement to build a house.

My question is this, if the neighbour was to sell him the house on the condition that he builds the house with X builder (Known to both parties) does this get him around the SD issue in that it is now a purchase of a site in connection with an agreement to build a house?

My brother intends to live in the house and it will be his PPR. Seems very unfair if he gets stuck with SD of approx €20k +

Thanks for any input. Much appreciated.

Johnnybegood
 
Not 100% sure of the answer to your question but we did purchase a serviced site with planning last year (although it wasn't full planning, i.e. we had to design our own house, apply for planning etc.) and we still had to pay the full SD @ 9% so the fact that the site was sold for once off building purposes didn't make the SD dissappear. HTH.
 
This is an interesting question. The relevant section is s.29 of the Stamp Duties Consolidation Act 1999 which says

It goes on to say that persons making incorrect statements to the Revenue can be prosecuted and fined or even imprisoned.

My feeling is that unless there is a genuine financial arrangement between the vendor of the site and the builder whereby the vendor is forcing the purchaser to build with this particular builder that this section does not apply and to say otherwise would be an offence.

Personally I think that people buying sites to build on should be able to apply for say FTB exemptions or other exemptions just like a buyer of a house would be but that's a matter to complain to your TD about.