4th September 2025
Think of these three dimensions
It may be that Angela Rayner is blaming tax law for her own mistake – or it may be that tax law may be to blame.
But conceive the following:
– an X axis which is tax law
– a Y axis which is trusts law involving children
– a Z axis which is deeming provisions
Few mortals – and indeed few lawyers – would be confident on anything which combined two, let alone three, of these axes. (I probably could just about deal with Z.)
Again, this complexity may just be convenient cover for an avoidable error by Rayner, maybe. She is a politician.
But that X, Y and Z together?
*Winces*
**
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So, back to the fact that UK law is overly complex and therefore uncertain and expensive?
(Written from a European code-law perspective).
It is purported that the rules are stated clearly on the Gov website so complexity is a poor defence.
“If any of you will own, or part own more than one residential property worth £40,000 or more, you will have to pay the higher rates on your new purchase (unless there is another reason why the higher rates do not apply).
Include any residential property that:
– is owned on behalf of children under the age of 18 (parents are treated as the owners even if the property is held through a trust and they are not the trustees)
– you have an interest in as the beneficiary of a trust”
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/stamp-duty-land-tax-buying-an-additional-residential-property
Who checks the Govt website when buying and selling a house? 1 in 20, 1 in 10?
HMRC may take that view that it should always be checked as allows them to punitively extra revenue for genuine mistakes.
From a consumer perspective that seems harsh. Caveat emptor shouldn’t be applied to buying property.
From a legal perspective it just re-enforces my view that Conveyancing is one of the sloppier corners of the profession/ because it’s 99% paralegal work and 1% whoopsie! Not that I hold the conveyancer at fault necessarily but this situation is subject to remission up front with a little pre-process Q&A.
“99% paralegal work and 1% whoopsie!” made me laugh out loud
The details and the devil lives in the 1%.
I would assert that some online property sales concerns come with their own pre-packaged 99% solution.
Later on the same page, a different rule is stated:
“If the beneficiary is under 18, the child’s parents are treated as the buyers (even if they are not the trustees) unless the child is covered by the Mental Capacity Act 2005 or the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016”
Given that Rayner’s son has disabilities, it’s plausible that this exception might apply. (It’s also possible that this guidance is not the same as the actual legislation!)
I think we do know pretty much that doesn’t apply, because the Mental Capacity Act applies only to people over 16. Charlie was born in 2008, so the “relevant court appointment” required by the Finance Act 2003 Schedule 4ZA couldn’t have been before 2024.
The Court order we know about was 2020, and the Trust was set up 2023. So these cannot be related to the Mental Capacity Act.
I guess there could have been a subsequent Court order that nobody has mentioned yet, which varied the Trust, but that does seem a stretch, particularly because the firm of solicitors that drew up the Trust said they didn’t subsequently work with her.
But if you don’t consider that you own a residential property, why look at advice about buying another one?
I don’t agree with your analysis. While the particular area of tax law involved is esoteric (such that few advisers are competent to advise), the relevant statutes of tax law are clear on the matter of trusts. So the issue can be condensed to a single X axis: tax law.
If Ms Rayner had taken advice from a suitably qualified tax lawyer with full instructions the correct amount of tax would have been paid at the correct time.
Dan Neidle is good on the matter.
“clear”
Good point. From my point of view the current pile-on is the worst sort of approach to human error in a complex personal situation.
I hope that she emerges stronger from this.
Legally, I have sympathy for her. I think she is effectively caught by an anti-avoidance provision which really ought not to apply in her situation.
Politically, I think her position is much weaker. She denied any wrongdoing at first and it has taken quite a long time for the true picture to come out. She should have investigated before denying, and paid any erroneously missed SDLT straight away. Instead she appears like Zahawi.
Hardly like Zahawi – who denied, SLAPPed and Super injuncted over a period of years vs a couple of months of double checking for Rayner.
I can see why it would suit some bad faith actors to claim it’s the same but it’s fundamentally not.
I do have a certain amount of sympathy with her. In practically any other aspect of taxation (including council tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax), her Brighton house would be her primary home, not a second home. The fact that it is considered a second home for the purposes of stamp duty seems to me to be both inconsistent and unfair. Many other people, in a similar situation, would make the same, albeit wrong, assumptions, on the basis that they (equally wrongly) believe that tax law is reasonable.
However, my sympathy is tempered by two things. Firstly, as a cabinet minister and high wealth individual, obtaining informed and reliable tax advice should be a priority even if only for the sake of appearances. And, secondly, her own previous statements have shown no sympathy for anyone else in a similar situation, or indeed for anyone who seeks to, entirely lawfully, minimise their tax obligations.
I don’t think she should resign. I do think she should apologise for her error, admit publicly that not everyone who underpays tax is morally at fault even if they are technically at fault legally, and agree that it is perfectly legitimate – laudable, even – to want to do the best for your own family.
Not necessarily germane to this BUT I phoned three HMRC advisors about the same point on separate occasions and each gave me contradictory advice.
If the people inside the system don’t understand it, outsiders certainly won’t!
Anyone who has been on the housing market lately will have had experience of the general standard of conveyancing in this country. And it’s not great, sorry conveyancing colleagues.
I’ve had parts of the property not even conveyed properly, land-registry stuff not filed, delays of many months just getting stuff signed. The catch-all excuses are always the other side and/or delays at the registry.
It would be great if I could simply say this was because of the low fees paid for each transaction (and to be fair they aren’t a lot) but even more up-market firms I’ve seen in commercial transactions haven’t be great.
The reporting of this focusing on the value of the transaction also appears to be under the misimpression that £800k is a particularly large transaction by today’s standards. I think this is just from people who have not kept track of house-price increases.
We all give advice which turns out to be wrong. Too many of us, probably, trespass on areas where our advice – or unguarded comments – maybe on shaky ground. But most clients believe us: that’s why they come to see us. I very much doubt Angela is to blame. For myself I hope it’s just a series of really unfortunate errors, and she can be left to get on with her job – which for me, and in sticky times for labour, she is doing really well.
Stamp Duty has become increasingly complex and costly in the years since I last lived and worked in the UK.
It seems to me that any cautious half decent conveyancer would contact HMRC and agree a Stamp Duty calculation before exchanging contracts these days . Yes ,I know , I should really pick up my hat and coat on the way out !
Finally in the Eu jurisdiction I am now subject to , the general rule of thumb is that if you buy a property and sell within five years you can expect to take a loss .
I hope all this helps some people.
I think it is also important to note the opening comment if Rayner’s statement, “Until now, an undertaking in a court order prevented me from disclosing information about certain aspects of my personal life. In the interests of public transparency, I applied to the court and I was last night released from this undertaking.”
Had she applied to the court earlier, perhaps she could have nipped the press onslaught in the bud, before it built up a head of steam? (Apologies for the mixed metaphors.)
The incident makes it clear that UK tax law is simply too complicated for a normal person to follow even when they are honest and have good intentions. The best outcome would be if it was a trigger for senior politicians to recognise that fact and start a major tax simplification campaign. Sadly, I don’t expect such a sane and productive response from any politicians of any party.
Oh dear – it looks as though Ms Rayner has either walked the plank on her own volition or, was she pushed?
The strange intricacies of tax law really require more terminology. We already have tax evasion (illegally not paying tax), tax avoidance (not paying tax that you have no legal obligation to pay, but where someone else thinks you have a moral obligation to pay) and mere tax. But we also need two more terms to extend in the other direction: one to refer to tax which is paid and legally demanded, but morally wrong (and I’d give Angela Rayner’s personal situation as an example or the sort of area it would cover), and another to refer to tax paid that was incorrectly demanded.
That results in a symmetry of legal/moral/neutral/immoral/illegal which reflects viewing the spectrum from the point of view of both taxpay and tax collector.
(With the benefit of having read the letter from the Independent Advisor on Ministerial Standards.)
She did consult (two) experts on the Y-axis. They apparently told her she didn’t need to pay this extra tax. However, they also told her to consult an extra expert on the X-axis. She didn’t, and that, specifically, was her downfall.
I believe that if she had not been told to consult an expert on the X-axis, she would have been fine. After all, if an expert on the Y-axis doesn’t know he has insufficient expertise, she could hardly be expected to know better.
Some might say it is obvious she should have consulted an expert in the X-axis. Perhaps. But if that is true, then it would have been obvious to an expert on the Y-axis.