Stamp duty on shared ownership

You choose between two routes when you buy. With a market value election you pay once, on the full market value of the home, and nothing more on the rent or when you buy more shares later. Without it you pay on the price of the share you buy now, plus tax on the rent if its net present value is above £125,000, and you pay again on any later share bought once your total share passes 80%.

With a market value election, £5,000 for a first-time buyer and £10,000 for anyone else, charged on the full £400,000. Paying in stages, £0 for a first-time buyer, whose relief also covers the rent, and £700 on the share for anyone else, plus tax on the rent's net present value, which HMRC's calculator works out.

A choice, made in your stamp duty return, to be taxed on the full market value of the home straight away instead of on the share you are buying. The tax is paid once: nothing is charged on the rent or on any shares you buy later, and the choice cannot be undone. It tends to suit buyers who expect to own the whole home in time, and first-time buyers whose relief then covers the full market value.

Only on the part above £300,000. When the full market value is £500,000 or less, first-time buyer relief applies on either route: with the election its rates of nothing up to £300,000 and 5% to £500,000 apply to the market value, and paying in stages they apply to the share price, with no tax on the rent. Above a £500,000 market value there is no relief at all. The relief covers shared ownership purchases completing on or after 29 October 2018, except from 8 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, when first-time buyer relief was switched off. It never applies to buying further shares later.

Not if you made the market value election, which settled the tax on the whole home. Without it, buying more shares is free of stamp duty until your total share passes 80%; the purchase that takes you past it, and every one after, is taxed on a share of the tax on everything you have paid so far. First-time buyer relief never applies to those later purchases. This calculator does not model buying further shares; HMRC's shared ownership guidance sets out the calculation.

The value today of all the rent due over the lease, discounted year by year the way HMRC's calculator does it. On a residential lease the tax on it is nothing up to £125,000 and 1% above £125,000. Use HMRC's calculator for the figure, then enter it in the calculator on this page to include the tax on the rent.

Purchases by a non-UK resident, by someone who pays the higher rates because they own another home, or by a company; first-time buyer relief on a purchase that completed before 29 October 2018; buying further shares; and an election where the freehold is not available and a minimum rent is payable. For those it shows the reason and a link to the official guidance instead of a figure.

No. These are Stamp Duty Land Tax rules, which apply in England and Northern Ireland only. Scotland charges Land and Buildings Transaction Tax and Wales charges Land Transaction Tax, each with its own bands and its own rules for companies, leases and shared ownership.