Stamp Duty: Buying Jointly When One Spouse Lives Overseas

A guide for married couples and civil partners buying a UK residential property together, where one of them is not currently UK resident.

What is the non-resident surcharge?

If you buy a residential property in England or Northern Ireland and you are not UK resident, an extra 2% is added on top of the normal Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) rates. This is known as the non-resident surcharge and it applies whether you are buying in your own name or jointly with someone else.

Residence for this purpose is not the same as tax residence generally. HMRC looks specifically at how many days you have spent in the UK in the twelve months before the purchase and the twelve months after it. To count as UK resident, you need to have spent at least 183 days in the UK within any continuous 365-day period falling inside that window – the days must fall within a single continuous 365-day stretch, not merely be added up across the whole two years.

The general rule for joint buyers

Where a property is bought by more than one person, the normal rule is a strict one: the surcharge applies to the whole purchase if even one of the buyers is non-UK resident, regardless of how many of the other buyers are UK resident.

The exception for married couples and civil partners

There is an important relief that softens this rule for spouses and civil partners buying together. If one of you is UK resident under the test above, the surcharge will not apply to the purchase at all, even if the other is currently non-resident.

This relief is intended for couples who are genuinely “living together” as spouses, even if one of them is temporarily working overseas. This is a test about the state of the relationship, not about geography. If you are separated, this may affect whether the relief applies and this is worth discussing with us before your purchase completes.

This relief is only available to married couples and civil partners. If you are buying with a partner, sibling, friend, or anyone else you are not married to or in a civil partnership with, the general rule above applies in full. The surcharge will still be charged on the whole purchase if either buyer is non-UK resident, even where the other is UK resident throughout.

Does this affect the higher rate for additional properties?

No, this relief only concerns the 2% non-resident surcharge. It has no bearing on the separate higher rate of 5% that applies to purchases of additional residential properties, such as buy-to-let properties or second homes.

Additional property rules apply, meaning that the 5% higher rate still applies even if one of you owns a property, whereas the non-resident surcharge does not.
In short, it is entirely possible for a purchase to escape the 2% non-resident surcharge but still attract the 5% higher rate, or the other way around. The two tests are independent of each other and need to be checked separately.

A worked example

A husband and wife decide to buy a rental property together. The husband has always lived and worked in the UK. The wife has been working abroad for the last year and does not currently meet the 183-day UK residence test.

Given that they are married and the husband is a resident in the UK, this purchase is not subject to the 2% surcharge for non-residents. The relief on the additional property charge is separate from the relief on 5% higher rate, so the purchase will still be at the 5% higher rate if either of them already owns another residential property.

How we can help

Every situation is different, and getting the residence test or the additional property test wrong can be a costly mistake, particularly with HMRC’s increased focus on non-resident property transactions. If you are planning a joint purchase and one of you has spent time overseas, please get in touch with us before you exchange contracts so that we can confirm exactly how much Stamp Duty Land Tax will be due.

Thandi Nicholls Ltd
Creative Industries Centre
Glaisher Drive
Wolverhampton
West Midlands
WV10 9TG