UKC

Hello all.
I've just received a penalty for £100 from HMRC, as my solicitor didn't pay stamp duty on time during the conveyancing of our property.
The solicitor is not in, and a call to the lovely HMRC woman said that even though I had a solicitor, it is my obligation to pay it!!!
Any advice please?

In reply to Skol:

Sounds like you need to talk to a solicitor

In reply to GrahamD:
If wit were shit you would need laxatives

In reply to Skol:

There was something about this on The Money Programme on R4 a few weeks ago, it may be worth contacting them; it seems it is a not uncommon thing that Solicitors do.

In reply to Hat Dude:

In law the solicitor was acting as your agent, therefore anything they did or did not do on yourbehalf you remain responsible for.

I would write to your solicitor declaring your displeasure. Include in your letter that if you do not receive what you consider an adequate offer of compensation you will be making a complaint to the law society as well as persueing the solicitor through the small claims court. (send it recorded delivery)

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Thanks.
I've been down, and miraculously she was not in. I've left a photocopy of the bill, and will hound them thrice daily until they pay in full.
Does it cost to go to the small claims court and how do you set this in motion?

In reply to Skol:

This happened to me as well and my solicitor paid the fine as she missed the due date.

In reply to Skyfall:

That's good.
This solicitor seems ok when you can track her down, but she never returns calls. I'm hoping for a good outcome, but I like to plan ahead. I'm like a pig with a 'tater, me!

In reply to Skol:

When we move in 2007 our solicitor had problems paying due to some code mix up. We had two letter of HMRC the second was the final demand. Did you not get 1 or 2 letters before the fine? I was straight on the phone with the first and by the time the 2nd arrived it had been paid. I also got £300 reduction from my solicitor as a good will gesture.

In reply to Philip:
Thanks Phil. This is the first letter today. The HMRC were quite snotty and I told them that they were a bunch of scammers!
Hopefully this lady solicitor will get her finger out tomorrow and pay the bill.

In reply to Skol:


That would be the gentlemanly thing for her to do.

In reply to Ffion Blethyn:

For anyone interested and who receives these sort of fines, you may be interested.
I finally got a response from the solicitors( not voluntarily, I had to pester to get an answer).
The conclusion was that the solicitor had paid the stamp duty in time. The same thing has happened to 10 clients apparently. HMRC had 'sat on the cheques prior to paying them in , hence late payment.'
The solicitor was non committal that this was a HMRC scam, but I think it is.
I have to pay nothing! Yippee

In reply to Skol:

Do they have to pay by cheque? Must be possible to pay by bank transfer?

In reply to woolsack:


Dunno. That was his explanation. Bank transfer would be quicker but perhaps it's a scam? I couldn't call him a liar just yet

In reply to woolsack:

Of course they pay by cheque. You pay stamp duty to your solicitor between exchange and completion. Usually a 4 week gap, so they get the money for a few weeks. Paying by cheque they get the interest on it for a few more days.

If anyone is scamming it's the solicitor. HMRC should charge for cheque payments - that'll get the solicitors paying by bank transfer.

In reply to Philip:



Don't be daft, they will just carry on as before and pass the cost on to the customer!

In reply to Philip:


a) How do they get the interest for any more days than a bank transfer, bearing in mind the deadline applies in both cases (unless HMRC cash the cheque late)?

b) The interest is worth nada.


c) The solicitor will almost certainly have proof of postage, which is worth quite a lot where HMRC are concerned (I speak from experience here).

d) The solicitor has (AFAIAA, it's certainly the case for share transfers) to send a piece of paper off which comes back with actual real stamps on it, hence the name "stamp duty". It makes sense to attach the cheque to the paper form.

I'm no lover of solicitors, but given a choice between a solicitor and HMRC screwing up, I'd plump for the latter.

In reply to Nutkey:
Personally I was caught in the middle.
The solicitor held on until the last minute before releasing my equity. I had to practically camp there!
HMRC were obnoxious when I called them. 'Your fault pay up'.
How many people would have just paid the £100?

In reply to woolsack:

It is possible to pay by Bank Xfer but HMRC suck even more at handling bank payments than they do with cheques as we found out when we got a bunch bounced back to us during a couple week trial period and had to repay them by cheque.

These get sent to our clients every now and again as well, usually it's HMRC having cashed a cheque but not actually ticking that the payment has been received on their side. We just write telling them when the cheque was presented and we don't hear back (assuming they contact the client and tell them it's been paid and to ignore earlier letters).


We don't keep or get proof of postage. We're sending them a cheque and if they haven't cashed it within a couple weeks we usually reissue the cheque. Most solicitors write to HMRC via the DX system so we don't get PoP.


This doesn't make sense. We do the entire thing online except the payment, and for that all we do is write SDLT submission reference on the back of a cheque and chuck it in the post, doesn't need a covering letter. We don't get anything back from them in the post.

In reply to Philip:


Perhaps back in the 90's there was a 4 week gap. Pretty rare to have anything more than a week or two these days, it's certainly not the norm (in fact it's pretty unusual) to have a 4 week gap between exchange and completion.

After exchange most solicitors draw up a completion statement showing the balance due from the client to complete the purchase and that includes our fees and any disbursements, sdlt included. We can't complete without that money being cleared funds.

In reply to Philip:

And the current rates of interest on current and business accounts are???

Chris

In reply to Removed User:


Might be worth trying again...we pay stamp duty by BACS on all transactions and rarely have problems - we have had a few where they lose the payment within the system, but a few phone calls has sorted it out every time.

OP - If the solicitor has made a mistake I expect they'll pay the fine (we would), if it's HMRC the solicitor should sort it out for you. I wouldn't look for scams though, people mess things up perfectly well unintentionally.