When the bill for the extra 3% stamp duty on second properties came into effect on 1 April 2016, some people were concerned that they would have to pay extra stamp duty on any transaction that also included purchasing a granny annex alongside a main residence, which would make the stamp duty bill extremely large in some cases.
In fact the situation was that if the ‘granny annex’ was able to be sold as a separate property then, at the point the bill was introduced, the higher stamp duty would indeed be payable.
However, the government has now announced that changes will be made to the Finance Bill so that granny flats that are attached to the main property will not attract the additional stamp duty, and granny flats that are separate, but not worth any more than a third of the total property value, will also be exempt.
In actual fact, the situation where the additional stamp duty applied was not applicable to all granny flats because it only applied where the granny flat could be sold as a separate residence. For a lot of properties this would not have been the case anyway so people may have been led to worry unnecessarily.
Anyone who has had to pay the extra tax because of being in this position when buying a property since 1 April will be able to claim the extra tax back from HMRC.