Stamp Duty – Legal Office Notice No. 2 of 2017

Stamp Duty – Non-Residential Property Transactions Eligible for 2% rate under Transitional relief measures – Legal Office Notice 2 of 2017

Revenue Position

1. The rate of stamp duty on certain property acquisitions was increased from 2% to 6% on the 10th October 2017. The provisions were subsequently included in Finance Bill 2017, which was published on the 19th October 2017, but these will not become law until the Finance Bill is enacted. This increase was made subject to transitional measures for the retention of the 2% rate in cases where the property acquisition had reached an advanced stage. Revenue has now put arrangements in place for these transitional measures.

2. The transitional measures apply stamp duty at a rate of 2% on instruments that are executed before the 1st January 2018 where there was a contract in place before the 11th October 2017 that was binding on the parties to the contract and the instrument contains a certificate to this effect. [see Revenue eBrief No. 94/2017 of the 27th October 2017]

3. One option made available by Revenue is to File a return through the e-stamping system and pay the stamp duty at the rate of 2%, in which case a stamp certificate will not be issued. On enactment of the Finance Bill, Revenue will publish information on how the postponed stamp certificate can be obtained.

PRA and Stamp Duty

4. The PRA position is governed by Section 104 of the Registration of Tile Act 1964 as substituted by Section 64 of the Registration of Deeds and Title Act 2006

5. Legal Office Notice No. 4 of 2014 “Stamp Duty” sets out our practice

6. In addition see Legal office Notice No. 8 of 2010 “Rejection of Dealings, Query Management and Review” provides in paragraph 2 that an application will be rejected “Where no eStamp certificate or other evidence of stamping is lodged” [paragraph 2(2)]

Provisional Arrangements

7. The PRA will accept applications for registration and not reject same under Paragraph 2(2) of Legal office Notice No. 8 of 2010 where

a. A Transfer executed prior to the 1stJanuary 2018 which comes under the option made available by the Revenue set out in paragraph 3 above

b. It is accompanied by a solicitors letter

i. setting out the situation

ii. referring to and accompanied by evidence of filing of the return and payment of the duty [online return from Revenue and the Revenue Transaction number] and

iii. An undertaking that the solicitor will lodge with the PRA the stamp certificate when available from Revenue

8. The PRA

a. Will not reject the application on the grounds of Paragraph 2(2) of Legal Office Notice No. 8 of 2010 [however the application may be rejected if other grounds for rejection as set out in Paragraph 2 of the Legal Office Notice apply].

b. Will raise a query in relation to the Stamp Duty Certificate and point out that the application will proceed to registration as of the date of lodgement [Rule 60 of the LR Rules 2012] when the Stamp Duty Certificate is lodged. However, if the Stamp Duty certificate is not lodged by the 31st January 2018 the application will be rejected and if and when relodged the date of registration will be the date of relodgement.

John Murphy

Deputy Registrar

3rd November 2017