Sale price vs stamp duty

[Father*Ted]

Please tell me if this is a daft idea, but ....
I'm negotiating to buy a house at a price of £295k and will therefore face a bill for stamp duty of £8.85k, making a total of £303,850. When looking for a suitable house I encountered several web sites that listed previous selling prices of individual houses, averages for the street, and so on; some offered to estimate current value, based on previous selling price and market trend. With such information freely available, and all other things being equal, a house that sold today for £300k would be valued higher at some point in the future than one that sold for £295k. But more than that, my own feeling is that a house that sold for £300k would appear subjectively to be in a "higher bracket" than one that sold for £2xxk. I would be interested to find out what others think about offering to pay a purchase price of £304,150 (say) with a proviso that the vendor pays the stamp duty (£9,125), leaving the vendor no worse off. It would cost me £300 as the total stamp duty payable would be greater, but the potential benefit would be a greater perceived value on the house when the time came to sell. Would it be legal? Is it worth doing? As far as I know, there are no current CGT issues. Any thought, anyone?

[section 44]

Practically when conveyancers deal with issues such as the commercial agreement being that the seller pays for indemnities, stamp duty, deposit etc, technically it is typically dealt with (in the contract and transfer) on the basis of a reduced price and the buyer actually paying.

Is what you propose illegal? - probably not (as far as the Land Registry is concerned). Strictly speaking even if it was dealt with as you suggest (and not as above), technically you wouldn't be paying £304,150 for the property. You would instead be paying £304,150 for two things: the property; and the right to require the seller to discharge your stamp duty liability. If the conveyancer were to record this for Land Registry purposes (which feed into house price websites) as if you had paid £304,150 for solely the property then this would be incorrect although that's not to say that you wouldn't be able to find a conveyancer with sufficient integrity/intelligence to do what you suggest.

Sounds like a waste of time and effort.

[section 44]

Is what you propose illegal? - probably not (as far as the Land Registry is concerned).

Shoukd have read: Is what you propose illegal? - probably (as far as the Land Registry is concerned).