Product Description

It's a little known fact that, by following certain perfectly legal strategies, you could significantly reduce or eliminate your stamp duty bill when you buy a property. Some of these techniques are widely used by big building companies which offer incentives like 'cashbacks' and 'stamp duty paid' deals to homebuyers. In this fascinating tax guide property expert Russell Eaton will show you how to get these same incentives in ANY property deal. He shows you how to use little known, but perfectly legal, trade secrets to avoid stamp duty whenever you buy or sell a property.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #740655 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

From the Author
The book reveals property cashback secrets. Big cashbacks and ‘stamp-duty paid’ deals (offered by large house-building companies) can now be obtained by private individuals, whether buying or selling a property. This is good news for anyone buying or selling a home between private individuals.

With house prices so high, many people cannot afford to buy a property, or even move home. Even if you can get a mortgage, you still have to find the cash to pay for things such as legal fees, stamp duty, and the mortgage deposit. These ‘money-down’ costs cannot normally be covered by the mortgage loan, and this means the average buyer has to find thousands of pounds from savings and other sources. Typical money-down costs can amount to between £5,000 and £25,000 or more for an average house. This is why so many people can no longer afford to buy property.

"How to legally avoid stamp duty" shows how ordinary people buying from private individuals can now get the same big cash perks offered by house-building companies. The money-down costs are the biggest impediment to buying a property. They hold back first-time buyers desperate to find a home, and they prevent people from moving house. But when it comes to buying a new house from a large house-builder you often get incentives such as big cashbacks, stamp duty paid deals, and even offers to pay mortgage deposits or buy your old house. All this is aimed at eliminating the money-down costs that prevent people from buying property.

Naturally, house-building companies are not acting out of generosity. They recover these perks by reflecting the figures in their property prices. As the Buyer will be getting a mortgage based on the builder’s property price, the net result is that the mortgage loan ends up paying for most or all of the money-down costs.

That’s fine if you are buying a new house from a large building company that is able to package these ‘no money-down’ deals. But if you are buying or selling privately, these no-money-down deals are not available. But ‘How to legally avoid Stamp Duty’ reveals how these same strategies can be applied by ordinary people. In effect, the strategies used by large national house-building companies have been adapted for use between private individuals.

The book shows how anybody (even a first time buyer) can now buy a home without having to find the bulk of the money-down costs. It means that people buying from private individuals can now clinch a deal that generates a cashback to cover a large part of the money-down costs.

Sellers too can benefit by knowing how the big building companies operate. By using their strategies, a Seller can offer a property free of stamp duty without financial loss. Alternatively, there are ways a Seller can reduce the selling price and bag a sale by helping the Buyer make big savings in stamp duty costs. The same legal strategies used by building companies can now be used by private Buyers and Sellers.

From the Back Cover
How To Legally Avoid Stamp Duty.
'Shows home buyers and sellers how to make substantial savings'
Whether buying or selling, this book shows how to legally avoid Stamp Duty Land Tax and save thousands of pounds!
Ideal for UK residential property, where Buyers and Sellers can negotiate direct or through an estate agent.

For Buyers:
•Avoid stamp duty and make big savings.
•Never lose a property through lack of cash.
•Cover legal costs without using your own money.

For Sellers:
•Offer property free of stamp duty without financial loss.
•Never lose a buyer over price.
•Sell at lower price without financial loss.
Get the best deal whether buying or selling, and
learn trade secrets that reveal powerful strategies -
works every time!

"This book gives information that lawyers and estate agents don't tell you. Anybody buying or selling property in the UK should read this"
Philip Gegan, Property Lawyer.

About the Author
The author is Russell Eaton. Russell is a full-time property investor and writer and the UK's leading authority on stamp duty avoidance techniques. He is the author of two books on stamp duty planning, based on his many years experience negotiating property deals. He is also the author of five other business and travel books.

Customer Reviews

misleading title
This book only really offers only the well known "chattels" route to avoiding stamp duty. It does point out that to be cautious one should only aportion chattels value at less than %5 of the property value, or risk attracting the attention of the Inland Reveneue. But otherwise as bjk100 points out this book is mainly a cut and paste job.

It offers "Seven" strategies for resedential property - of these only the "threshold strategy" is relevant to avoiding stamp duty - and it's straightforward - if the price is near the threshold then offer the threshold and try to make up the difference with chattels.

The rest of the "strategies" in this section are either cut-and-paste jobs, (the same text is repeated paragraph for paragraph in many sections) or it is advice on how to fund your stamp duty with your mortgage - and this advice is also repeated over an over in multiple sections. There is also a couple of small sections dedicated to people buying more than one property at once, or people who want to swap properties - I can't see that these two circumstances are that common, and the advice offered is simple common sense.

Please NOTE - a large portion of this book is dedicated to how to fund your stamp duty and other conveyancing costs through a LARGER MORTGAGE. So the title is a fraud, there is no avoidance, it merely explains how to pay the stamp duty by expanding your mortgage.

Do buy it if you want to read about the "cash back strategy" where you negotiate the price with the seller and then buy for a higher price and the seller gives you cash back - which you can use to fund stamp duty etc... but note again NO TAX IS AVOIDED, only DEFERRED - with interest.

Then the book goes on to cut and past all the advice all over again with minor trivial alterations for "commercial" property.

The only reason I bought this book is because I'm desparate, I'm lookign at a couple of properties right now, listed at 269K, and the impending stamp duty lunacy is giving me heartburn.

I didn't expect much, but my optimism was engaged by the three other reviews - I now wonder if the author is installing some astro-turf at amazon.

Cut n Paste
I was very dissappointed with this book, it only contains a couple of ideas and not much that isn't already obvious. The few techniques it does describe are then repeated with slight variations and re-badged as new techniques within later chapters in the book. Whole chapters are practically cut and paste in this way so much that it's pointless re-reading them again (although the author encourages you to do this).
Schoolboy tricks, write a chapter then copy it eight times with new headings and pretend you've written a book - not!
Schoolboy antics, write a chapter then copy it eight times with new headings and pretend you've written a book - not!

Already saved £3,000
I got a copy of the book when it was first published about a month ago. At the time I was in the middle of buying a flat in Chester. The flat was selling for £149,000, but I had little money for the stamp duty, legal fees, or mortgage deposit. I negotiated a price of £147,000 and using the strategies in the book I got a whooping £8,000 cashback from the Seller. I was able to use the £8,000 cashback to pay for stamp duty, etc. and ended saving over £3,000 in costs. Without the book I would have lost the flat. A real gem!