Crest Nicholson and others v HMRC

Cathya Djanogly

In Crest Nicholson and others v HMRC [2017] UKFTT 135 (1 February 2017) the FTT found that sub-sale relief did apply to the acquisition of land but that no bare trust had been created by the assignee of the sale contract who was therefore liable for the SDLT.

The issue was the SDLT payable on the acquisition of development land from three independent vendors for a total purchase price of over £32m. Wainscott a company had entered into three contracts for the purchase of the land. It had subsequently made a distribution of the land in specie to its main shareholder South East. The distribution included the assignment of the benefit of the three acquisition agreements. Finally three deeds of transfer had completed the transfer of the land to South East.

Wainscott contended that it had assigned its rights under the purchase contracts to...

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