property sold price publication... is it obliged?

[VALFR59]

Is it possible to avoid to have the price you've bought a property published in this country?

Can I do something to keep it not visible for few months? (I bought a flat in April)

it has been already published in Zoopla and RightMove....

If you know how to proceed, please let me know or Pm me.

Thanks for helping

Val

[Loz]

I don't believe so - the feed comes from the Land Registry.

[picmicnic]

For some reason the price we paid for our house has never been published on any of the property websites. Not sure why but am glad it wasn't published.

[ClareC]

Ours wasn't either..... Again, not a bad thing but have no idea why.

[edcam]

It's all available on the Land Registry after a while. Are there not better things to fret about though?

[Lowlander]

Land Registry publishes it, you're not permitted to redact.

Exclusions are commercial sales and those not for full price (e.g. reposessions). Full list here: http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/market-trend-data/house-price-data-exclusions

[ruffers]

I'm curious as to why one would want the information kept from the public domain?

[VALFR59]

thanks for your replies! I will ask LAnd registry then.

[Twirly]

That's what I was wondering too. After all, everyone can see everyone's, so what difference does it make?

[MrBen]

Well....as a quick glance on the property thread here will confirm, in the following circumstances:

- When you've bought a place on the cheap from someone gullible/desperate who didn't understand their property's true value and you plan to flip it in 4 months for a ?100k profit. You don't want to build resentfulness amongst potential buyers or draw attention to the taxman by exposing your quick easily gained profit. You also don't want the world to see you for the money grabbing down rotten filthy parasitic shark you are.

- You have sold your house to a family member for way less than market value to avoid stamp, IHT or to effectively transfer capital assets. It will stick out like a sore thumb on the registry and draw attention.

For both of the above I'm glad it has to be declared. If yours isn't, the chances are it has been lost in the public sector void where these things go sometimes and just down to sloppy/lazy admin.

[MrBen]

You also have some standard exceptions anyway such as commercial deals, right to buy, divorces transfers, gift etc which are not normally listed on public register.

[womanofdulwich]

If your house sale details are not on the land registry after 6 months, it probably means you have a rubbish solicitor .

[LondonMix]

Why does it bother you? If you've bought recently, people can very easily estimate how much you had to pay.

Are you thinking of re-selling it? That really is the only reason not to want people to know.

[Burbage]

LondonMix Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Why does it bother you? If you've bought

> recently, people can very easily estimate how much

> you had to pay.

Well, yes. But that only works if it's a normal transaction, reflecting the market price at the time.

But as MrBen points out, transactions aren't always normal. Sometimes people have reason to want to lie about the price, over- or under-estimating it depending on whether they're trying to borrow money, get divorced, avoid tax, claim insurance, whinge about council tax, diddle a relative or anything else that still passes for economic activity.

Some properties go for surprisingly low prices. Forced sales do happen, of course, but a knock-down private sale can be a neat way to disappear taxable income or inconvenient assets, whether criminal gains or the sort of pile that might keep you off legal aid.

Some go for surprisingly high prices. Those significantly above market rates - which estate agents love, despite the delicate stench of palpable fraud, because they push up the reported market rates - don't happen just because some people have more money than sense. They can happen because it's a way of moving money from one person or company to another without it being too obvious. Stamp duty is less avoidable than it was, but it's a smaller hit than corporation or income or inheritance taxes might be, and is, though you have to be a bit clever, a great way to minimise outgoings.

The tax regime, despite appearances, is a nice little earner for the chiselling scammers among us, and serves the legal and property industries very well indeed. This isn't entirely surprising, given that both MPs and their Whitehall masters tend to be selected, as they have been for centuries, from a restricted pool of privileged property-owners who, as the expenses scandal showed, have a vested interest in loopholes.