Does SDLT apply to the purchase of an easement?

“My client is purchasing a very expensive property (over £1,000,000) and in order to proceed with his purchase, a deed of easement is required in order to provide a right of access and services (from a different party), and my client has agreed to pay £55,000 for the deed.  Does this figure need to be added to the consideration for SDLT purposes? I have checked on the Gov website and it refers to a SDLT form, if required, and I have tried speaking to Inland Revenue and they have not been able to help.

Has anyone come across this before who can give me some guidance, please?”

Source: BLG Member 

 


An easement is a chargeable interest for SDLT purposes and SDLT, in principle, will be payable.  If the easement is being purchased from a different (and unconnected) vendor it will be a separate land transaction from the purchase of the property.  As the chargeable consideration does not exceed the threshold there will be no SDLT payable and the transaction will not be notifiable.  Otherwise it would be treated a linked transaction.

At the time of publication this response was correct however as tax legislation and practice change from time-to-time you should take specific advice before taking any action.

Please refer to Ann’s free resource if you have any further stamp duty land tax questions. This resource covers a wide range of queries and you can filter the results by SDLT topic to find a specific query.

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