Agree with ClubMan - you're only fooling yourself with something like that. The pain of SD now is better than the pain of SD with interest, penalties etc...
Agree with mf1.
No need to try and be smart!. Point is we DIDN'T go through with it in the end. I was too worried about it coming back to haunt us anyway plus the fact I didn't really like where the house was anyway.
I also think alot of people need to wake up, do you honestly think this sort of thing has not being going for years?. Seriously, on TWO occasions we were told by Estate Agents that we could do a similar thing to avoid paying stamp duty and we didn't bother going along with it. I have yet to hear of anyone being caught either.
OP, walk away, eventhough you love this house god only knows that offer could be a load of rubbish (EA's
) so hold on and something else in your price range will come up, alot of changes happening in house prices at the moment so it might be wiser to hold off and pay the purchase price you can afford.Best of luck.
I suspect that mf1 was just expressing frustration rather than trying to be smart. This misconception keeps cropping up and some people still insist on justifying it even in the face of what is most likely authoritative evidence to the contrary.
Well - as mentioned above, Revenue are waking up to this or related suspect practices.
As I said - don't dependen on an EA or anybody else with a vested interest in selling something to or for you for independent, professional advice on the tax and other financial issues involved.
Revenue have all the time in the world to catch tax evaders out.
Sensible advice.OP, walk away, eventhough you love this house god only knows that offer could be a load of rubbish (EA's
I apologise, my mistake. In our case, the stamp duty saving happened, but it is rather small (7% of €5k if I remember correctly). The rate band was not an issue. I thought it could be in this case.
Sorry 'bout that,
Buddyboy
I was thinking of that at the time, if I was really nasty and recorded the phonecalls when it was sugggested to me I suppose I could have reported them for misconduct. The first time it was said to me I nearly fell over with shock, didn't think for a minute it was legal and we did walk away. The second time I actually burst out laughing when it was mentioned like it was "the norm", think that was the biggest shock I got.
Also, just wanted to add 3% of €320k is €9,600..not really that bad if you have been saving, if you really want that house you could up the offer to €325k...SD is €9,750 so you could think of it that way. It's all about affordability and doing the right thing in the end. Do you really want it coming back and biting you on the rearend bigtime for the sake of €5k under the table...seriously think about it!.
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Sue them on what basis? Does a duty of care exist? You could report them I'm sure, but I don't think you could sue-their job is to sell the property for the vendor-I don't think they are obliged to give the buyer tax advice.
No idea - not a solicitor. Surely though they are not allowed to mislead a buyer like that? From a tax perspective there's law covering the facilitation of tax evasion... It just seems a little unfair that they can say these things to buyers.
Is there anything on the sale of goods and services side??