Simon Howley considers the interaction of stamp duty land tax and trusts, and asks is it the trustees or beneficiaries who are treated as the purchaser for those purposes?
Stamp duty land tax (SDLT) doesn’t mess around when it comes to trusts.
There are only two types as far as the law is concerned; bare trusts (including life trusts) and the general catch-all category of ‘other’ trusts (all legislative references in this article relate to FA 2003, unless otherwise stated).
Bare trusts
In the case of a bare trust, SDLT looks through the trust and treats the beneficial owner or owners as the vendor or purchaser, as the case may be. The beneficial owner is treated as acquiring the chargeable interest that the bare trustee, in fact, acquires.
It is, therefore, the beneficial owner who is responsible for completing and
