Pollen Estate: SDLT and joint purchasers

The Court of Appeal decision in The Pollen Estate Trustee Company Ltd King’s College London v HMRC [2013] EWCA Civ 753 has been eagerly awaited (at least in SDLT circles) as it explores the fundamental principles of how SDLT applies to joint purchasers of land. The Upper Tribunal decision had resulted in a very harsh outcome on the face of it. The Court of Appeal has now reversed this decision but not quite in the way one might have imagined.

The author’s initial reaction on turning to the back page of the Court of Appeal’s judgment and seeing that the taxpayer’s appeal was allowed was that HMRC’s entire approach to the issue of joint purchasers must...