Charitable relief not due

The claimant company acquired four properties as a bare trustee for the beneficiaries of the Pollen Estate Trust. Two beneficiaries were registered charities one of which was a hospital.

The company claimed exemption from stamp duty land tax under FA 2003 Sch 8 and s 107 in respect of the proportion of the properties around 75% beneficially owned by the charitable beneficiaries and the hospital respectively.

HMRC refused the claim. The company appealed.

The Upper Tribunal said the relevant transaction for the purposes of stamp duty land tax had been the acquisition of the entire property and not each separate acquisition of an undivided share by each tenant in common.

It held that where a land transaction involved a number of people acquiring a property through a bare trust the purchasers should be treated as joint purchasers and the transaction taxed as a single land...