In the recent Upper Tribunal decision in The Pollen Estate Trustee Company Limited and King’s College London various properties had been purchased by bare trustees to be held in undivided shares for beneficiaries who were absolutely entitled which included charities and crown bodies within FA 2003 s 107(2) as well as beneficiaries who were neither charities nor crown bodies. The appellants claimed partial relief from SDLT on the basis that each acquisition of an undivided share was a separate transaction which enabled a co-purchaser which was a charity or a crown body to benefit from charities relief or the exemption under s 107 respectively. The tribunal rejected this argument and decided in favour of HMRC that each purchase of a property constituted a single transaction with the charitable and non-charitable purchasers or the crown and non-crown purchasers jointly acquiring the whole of the property since this is what...
